p Socialist society is a society organised into the state and governed on the principles of socialist democracy. Socialist democracy implies government by the working people and this means that ever greater numbers of working people have to run the state, and not merely take part in administration but take part in it consciously and decisively, and that ultimately the entire adult population should share in such participation. Conscious discipline and good organisation of the working people are indispensable attributes of socialist democracy.

p The great advantage of the socialist social system is that it makes it possible to combine scientific and technological progress with the further development of democracy. Under socialism, first, the scientific and technological revolution becomes a matter of the creative endeavour of millions and, second, its achievements are used in a planned manner on a national scale for the benefit of the people at large. Socialist democracy furthers this revolution and provides for a successful solution of new and complex problems facing society; in turn, the scientific and technological revolution furthers socialist democracy. These features of scientific, technological and socio-political progress under socialism underline the fundamental distinction between the socialist system and bourgeois society, in which the technological 105 revolution tends to build up the monopolies, enables them to merge with the state and strengthens bureaucratic centralism.

p The progress of science and technology provides ever better conditions for increasing the role of the representative bodies in the socialist state system. The rise in cultural standards of the bulk of the working people makes it possible to elect people of various occupations and specialists of all kinds to representative government bodies. This helps to improve the work of these bodies and makes for more effective control and direction of administrative agencies.

p The spectacular growth of the productive forces of the Soviet Union and the advance of the scientific and technological revolution have called for further improvement of the forms and methods of organisation and economic management. This purpose is served by the economic reform, which is yielding good results.

p The economic reform presupposes a new approach to economic management. It further stimulates the creative initiative of the working people and their role in managing production. The rights of the working people in managing the enterprises have been greatly extended. For example, factory and office workers hold meetings to discuss the problems of production, the production targets, and the collective agreements between management and trade unions and how they are fulfilled. This involves discussion of the introduction of new machinery and the economic and social consequences of technological progress in the factory.

p An important part in technological progress, especially under the new system of planning and economic stimulation, is played by socialist competition among working people, which is, in fact, a form of socialist democracy and gives free scope to mass initiative. Commitments and plans for the social development of enterprises include measures for improving the workers’ skills and knowledge, extending their general education and training them in new skills. In the conditions of the scientific and technological revolution factory managements and union committees pay increasing attention to workers’ training, and retraining and to their creative approach to labour.

p A major social advance brought about by scientific and 106 technological progress under socialism is the moulding of a new type of worker. The rapidly growing number of inventors and rationalisers among workers is conclusive evidence of this intensive process, which is altering the content and character of labour. The scale of the movement may be judged from the fact that in 1970, for instance, the number of inventions and improvements introduced in the Soviet economy exceeded 3.4 million. This reflects the creative response of workers, technicians and engineers to society’s need for the development and introduction of new technology.

p Technological progress calls for an effort on the part of workers to utilise, collectively and individually, the various reserves for increasing efficiency. In the Soviet Union, scientific and technological progress is achieved through the efforts of the working man and its ultimate aim is his welfare. That is why technological progress under socialism relies on the creative initiative of millions, on the active involvement of the mass organisations, the trade unions and the Young Communist League first and foremost, in the effort to achieve a steady rise in the scientific and technical level of production.

p The letter of the Central Committee of the CPSU, the Council of Ministers of the USSR, the All-Union Central Trade Union Council, and the Central Committee of the Young Communist League “For Better Utilisation of the Production Reserves and More Thrift in the National Economy" (1970) emphasised that it is necessary to work consistently to raise the standards of efficiency, increase the productivity of every worker, collective farmer, specialist and scientist.

p The socialist system combines technological progress with full employment and ensures methodical redistribution of manpower according to the requirements of social production. The Communist Party and the Soviet Government have raised the problems of rational utilisation of manpower, redistribution and retraining of workers to the level of national tasks. The solution of these tasks has been assigned to special government bodies responsible for the employment of the labour resources. Their particular function is to prepare and carry out, jointly with ministries and enterprises, measures for retraining workers and redistributing them 107 among factories, building projects, industries and economic areas.

p Scientific and technological progress calls for continuous improvement of the whole system of state guidance of society. This refers both to the organisation of the state machinery itself—its structure and the system of relations between state bodies, and to its methods of administration in various spheres of human activity. Here, the standing problem is that of optimal delimitation of powers for the various levels of state administration and the representative bodies of state power, which for the most part decide questions of administrative policy, and also local management bodies.

p The administrative apparatus undergoes substantial changes. Because these changes reflect objective tendencies, it is able to influence scientific and technological progress more effectively. This is promoted by the growing role of forecasting, technical-economic rate setting, management of research and development work. As far as the character and methods of their work are concerned, many managing bodies increasingly come to resemble economic and technological research centres.” This is largely due to the greater role research institutes and scientific opinion in general play in management as they take an increasing part in preparing forecasts, supplying data for development projects, and drafting decisions.

p Scientific workers come to play an appreciably greater role in the state bodies where they are not only (and not so much) engaged in administrative functions. All this puts management on a thoroughly scientific foundation. Certainly, the effectiveness of management, as well as its general standards, depend on the use of up-to-date machinery, including computers, which sharply increase the efficiency of administrative work and facilitate decision-making. Under the economic reform, better conditions are provided for state guidance of scientific and technological progress through the new system of planning and economic stimulation.

p Classification and grouping of enterprises according to type within each industry has made it possible to pursue a single technical policy, without which it is impossible to ensure proportional and all-round development of the material and technical basis. This policy is essential under public ownership of the means of production and is to lay down a 108 clear line of technological development both of individual enterprises and industries and of social production as a whole.

p In exercising control the state decides in what order steps must be taken to ensure technological progress and determines the main lines of such progress both for individual sectors and their various combinations. The shift to the sectoral system of economic management was necessitated, above all, by the requirements of scientific and technological progress. Ministries, i.e., the bodies in charge of individual industries, are responsible for the technical level of a given branch of production. Important functions in this field have been vested in the USSR Council of Ministers State Committee for Science and Technology. The state establishes the order of research priorities and sees to the prompt introduction of the results in industry.

p The resolution of the Central Committee of the CPSU and the Council of Ministers of the USSR “On Measures to Raise the Effectiveness of the Work of Research Organisations and Speed the Introduction of the Achievements of Science and Technology in the National Economy”, of September 24, 1968, outlined a number of new objectives and conditions serving to make the work of research and design organisations more effective and pointed out how to improve the planning and economic stimulation of such work, and—most important—determined the procedure for practical utilisation of its results.

p State administration is a major condition of rapid scientific and technological progress in socialist society. It is one of the great advantages of the socialist system over capitalism. As the socialist economy develops and the process of technological change becomes more intense, the role of state guidance steadily increases.

p As was decided at the 24th Congress of the CPSU, further improvement of economic management is one of the key questions of Party policy. In essence it is a question of how best to accelerate the economic and social development of Soviet society. The increasingly extensive participation of the working people in managing production is a major factor in raising the effectiveness of economic organisation and management. The decisions of the Congress provide for all-round development of all forms of socialist democracy that ensure effective participation of the masses in the elaboration and 109 discussion of economic plans and decisions and in active control over fulfilment of these decisions.

p A very important point is that the working people’s participation in economic management is not confined to economic tasks within the boundaries of a single enterprise. “What we must achieve is, as Lenin emphasised, that every working person, every politically-conscious worker should feel ’he is not only the master in his own factory but that he is also a representative of the country’ (Collected Works, Vol. 27, p. 403)."  [109•1 

p A big role in economic management is played by the primary Party organisations, which unite millions of workers, collective farmers and professional and office workers. Using their right of control over enterprises’ economic activity, they exert an effective influence on production matters. The 24th Congress gave the primary Party organisations of research institutes, teaching establishments, cultural and other institutions the same right of controlling their administrations.

p The Party’s line is to further enhance the role of the most broadly based organisation of the working people—the trade unions—as schools of management, schools of communism. The trade unions are urged to draw the working people into production management and dealing with problems of scientific and technological progress on an even broader scale. In recent years production meetings, workers’ conferences and general meetings of collective farmers have become more active and the practice of having the leaders of amalgamations and enterprises and also the top officials of ministries reporting back directly to the workers has developed.

p In the current period the range of the Leninist Komsomol’s participation in matters concerning the young generation’s work and study and in the economic and scientific and technological spheres is markedly increasing. Leading Komsomol building projects, contests of skill between young workers, student building teams, youth production teams, summer labour and holiday camps and so on, are a concrete expression of this activity.

Genuine popular rule in the USSR is embodied in the nationwide organisation of socialist society, in the Soviets 110 of Working People’s Deputies. In accordance with the decisions of the 24th Congress of the CPSU, measures for further enhancing the authority and activity of the Soviets and particularly their influence on social production, have been worked out and are being put into effect.