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p Gennady Sorokin, Corresponding Member,
USSR Academy of Sciences

p Organisation of social labour and production has hinged, from the start, on division of labour. Marx and Engels described division of labour as “the totality of the physical aspects of social labour”,  [116•1  “a definite organisation of the labour of society”,  [116•2  “the basic form of all production".  [116•3 

p Division of labour assumes different forms, namely, in society as a whole (general and specific division) and in separate enterprises (individual division). In the present epoch there seems to be a good case for singling out yet another form—the division of labour between national economies (international division of labour). Although based on common principles, each form of division of labour has important specific features of its own and must be studied independently. Thus, the theory of division of labour investigates its general principles, the development of its various forms, and their interaction in the course of history.

p Division of labour in modern society is a twofold process. The division of labour inside society and inside each enterprise is supplemented by that which takes place between national economies. At some periods and in some countries the effect of different forms of division of labour may vary to a considerable extent. But given certain conditions 117 international division of labour may become crucial to the organisation of the whole of social production.

p Like production relations as a whole, division of labour is specific to each mode of production. Lenin observed that in different economic formations and in different periods division of labour assumed different forms.  [117•1 

p The historical succession of different forms of division of labour sees the twofold influence of the productive forces and division of labour, on the one hand, and of ownership and division of labour, on the other.

p In capitalist society, thanks to the productive forces, division of labour progresses much more rapidly than under the pre-capitalist modes of production. Large-scale industry constantly brings about radical changes in the technical base of production, the workers’ functions and the social combinations of the process of labour, thus constantly revolutionising the division of labour. Concentration of production is conducive to monopoly; the scale of production exceeds the home demand. Division of labour on the basis of large-scale capitalist industry takes the form of capitalist international division of labour. Division of labour between monopolies, particularly in the international field, becomes a major form of production under monopoly capitalism. Marx could state long ago that “thanks to the application of machinery and of steam, the division of labour was able to assume such dimensions that large-scale industry, detached from the national soil, depends entirely on the world market, on international exchange, on an international division of labour".  [117•2  With the development of capitalism, international division of labour acquires ever greater importance and provides the groundwork for the emergence and expansion of the world capitalist economy.

p Under monopoly capitalism, science and arms production stand out as the spheres of activity fundamental to the production cycle as a whole. These important fields deflect considerable manpower resources and national income and decisively affect the progress of technology, although they do so in a specific capitalist way, which necessarily implies wars. Science is becoming a leading productive force and it 118 could play an immense part in expanding production to meet society’s needs, but under capitalism it has to work primarily for imperialism.

p An equally antagonistic distribution of the conditions of labour emerges in territorial terms as well. The capitalist international division of labour, relations between national economies, take shape as relations of enmity and rivalry, domination and subjection, typifying the imperialist colonial policy of the principal capitalist powers. Imperialism intensifies the contradictions between the industrial and agrarian countries, establishing a division of labour between primaryproduct and manufacturing countries, which is profitable to imperialism and unprofitable to the colonies, and creating new forms of colonial and semi-colonial dependence. The division of labour between developed capitalist countries is also antagonistic. It increasingly proceeds via the biggest monopolies, particularly those of the United States, penetrating into other national economies. Capitalist division of labour promotes the reproduction of capitalist property and of antagonistic differences between classes, between mental and physical labour, the town and the countryside, the advanced capitalist countries and the developing countries. At present, capitalist division of labour is proving less and less able to show up such advantages as are to be derived from specialisation of production, and has become a formidable obstacle to progress. The abolition of the capitalist division of labour along with all other capitalist relations of production emerges as an indispensable condition of free development of the productive forces in the interests of the whole of society.

Thus, since it is an expression of major relations of production and distribution and takes place as a stable and systematically repeated phenomenon, division of labour is an economic law governing the development of social production. From its very beginning, division of labour has been an objectively necessary form of organisation of labour. In the course of time the importance of the law of division of labour increases. Each socio-economic formation obeys its own law of division of labour. Socialist international division of labour is a law which governs the development of the socialist world economy, a law of universal significance.

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p Socialist international division of labour—which is an objective developmental tendency—is affected by the entire system of the laws of socialist world economy. The objective necessity of providing ever more fully for the needs of the community, applying advanced technology most extensively for the sake of building up production, maintaining optimal economic proportions, keeping the growth of labour productivity ahead of earnings, aiding less developed countries—all this materially affects the rate and scope of the socialist international division of labour. Because it is not cramped by private ownership of the means of production and antagonistic contradictions between nations, socialist international division of labour develops more quickly. That is one of the important advantages of the socialist world system over the capitalist system. Unlike the capitalist division of labour, the socialist division of labour is organised according to plan. As Marx defined it, division of labour under capitalism is “a system of production which has grown up spontaneously and continues to grow behind the backs of the producers".  [119•1  Socialist division of labour, on the contrary, is a system of production which is methodically developed by society as it gets to know and applies objective economic laws.

p Socialist international division of labour is rooted in the emergence of national socialist economies which, as distinct from national capitalist economies, are able to employ more fully the essentially international productive forces developed under capitalism and create fresh productive forces of an international nature. Socialist ownership of the means of production not only abolishes relations of exploitation inside the national socialist economy; it is naturally conducive to relations of friendly co-operation between the working people of different countries, a mutually profitable, systematic socialist international division of labour, and complete equality and sovereignty in foreign relations. Such are the general, most important and constantly operating factors of the socialist international division of labour.

p Right from the start national socialist economies make a 120 clean break with the unequal capitalist international division of labour. Since they are economically and politically homogeneous, the socialist countries have been able to speed up the socialist international division of labour and ensure it greater strength and stability than the old, capitalist division of labour.

p Successful development of industry, national economic upswing, the need to use the results of the scientific and technological revolution and intensive economic growth factors contribute massively to the development and improvement of the socialist international division of labour. This process is of a systematic, continuous and overall nature. Its description is given in the Comprehensive Programme for the Further Extension and Improvement of Socialist Economic Integration by the CMEA member-countries. The Programme, which was adopted by the 25th Session of the CMEA Council in 1971, states: “The extension and improvement of economic, scientific and technological co-operation and the development of socialist economic integration by the CMEA member-countries is a process that is consciously and systematically regulated by the Communist and Workers’ Parties and the Governments of the CMEA member- countries. It is a process of the socialist international division of labour, the drawing closer of their economies and the formation of modern, highly effective national economic structures, of a gradual drawing closer and evening out of their economic development levels, a formation of deep and enduring ties in the basic branches of the economy, science and technology, an expansion and consolidation of the international market of these countries, and an improvement of commoditymoney relations.  [120•1 

p Socialism provides for a rapid growth of the productive forces, and “each new productive force ... causes a further development of the division of labour".  [120•2  The building of communism with its characteristic international use of productive forces intensifies the international division of labour, which becomes one of the most progressive and permanent 121 historical tendencies. Division of labour is closely bound up with the progress of technology and forms its general basis. As the technical base of every branch of the national economy expands, it becomes possible to divide the process of production on truly scientific lines.

p Development of the socialist international division of labour gives rise to additional, so to speak, natural forces of international social labour which cost the national economies nothing. Thanks to the social division of labour, the same amount of work yields more products, their production costs diminish, and accumulation rises.

p Progress of the international division of labour and its greater effect on social production is generally expressed in a more rapid advance of specialised branches compared with overall production. One gets a general idea of this from the ratio of the dynamics of national income (overall net output) to foreign trade (output of the branches with international specialisation). If the physical volume of foreign trade surpasses the net product, the international division of labour must be gaining ground.

p Thus in 1971 the national income and industrial production of the CMEA countries increased by 6.3 and 7.8 per cent respectively. Simultaneously the volume of reciprocal trade grew by 9 per cent, the exchange of engineering products rising ten per cent.

p Socialist international division of labour is expressed above all in inter-country specialisation and co-operation in production. International specialisation and co-operation begin in those branches and lines of production where productive capacity is employed rationally due to the socialist world market or where meeting the collective needs calls for international regulation of production, including the building of new projects. International specialisation is needed also where the interests of scientific and technological progress require joint international effort in developing pioneer enterprises or a concentration of research on problems of interest to all or several of the socialist countries together. Without international specialisation it would be difficult to set up such optimal enterprises as we have now or obtain any substantial increase in production efficiency. Of course, there may also be other concrete conditions for international co- operation.

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p International division of labour is not limited to specialisation of enterprises and industries. It is conducive to the specialisation of the national economies as a whole and to the emergence of national socialist economic complexes. Specialisation is first taken up by enterprises or industries, but as its practical importance increases, it is geared to the national economy as a whole, and this raises the problem of determining the place of each country in the socialist world system. Since there is no world planning authority, and as the international specialisation of economic branches and planning of national economic complexes is the sovereign concern of the socialist states, it becomes increasingly important with time for the latter to co-ordinate their efforts and use the economic mechanism of co-operation to rationalise the economic patterns of each country and of the socialist world system as a whole.

A national socialist economic complex is a specific form of organisation of production which depends on the level of economic development (viz., the forms of ownership and degree of socialisation; the production facilities, labour resources and skill standards; production of the social product and national income; production patterns and the capacity of the home market), on the natural resources and geographical situation of the country, its part in the international division of labour and the tendencies of its historically conditioned progress towards socialism and communism as part of the system of the socialist world economy. A national socialist economic complex is incompatible either with autarky or one-sided international economic specialisation. Its distinctive features are as follows: developing industry in each country, including, of course, heavy industry, as the mainstay of its economic progress, independence and unchallenged sovereignty; developing agriculture and the consumer goods industries to provide for a maximum satisfaction of the growing requirements; deriving the full benefit of the advantages afforded by the international specialisation of production, increasing the output of export goods and accumulating enough exchange to pay for essential imports; developing transport and communications sufficiently to meet the needs at home and expand foreign trade; providing full employment for its population; adjusting the pattern of the national economy so as to make it more effective and 123 build up the economy of the world socialist community as a whole; promoting the development of research centres as the strongpoints of scientific and technological progress. The development of national economic complexes proceeds in accordance with the laws of socialism and communism. It helps to equalise the socialist countries’ economic levels, involves aid to the less developed countries by those that are more advanced, and paves the way for a gradual integration of the national economies.

p Intensification of the socialist international division of labour depends to a great extent on how much the overall economic conditions favour the specialisation and stable cooperation in various branches and lines of production and how much they facilitate the grouping of international commodity producers. It seems that a quantitative criterion of the maturity of a national economy for taking a stable place in the international division of labour may be found in the correspondence of the value of goods intended for the foreign market to the socially necessary expenditures of labour (international value). Suiting the national production costs to international value is an intricate process which cannot be mastered without scientific planning and takes time. The division of labour between socialist countries takes into account a number of economic and political factors and is never based merely on any one criterion.

p Before the world socialist system emerged, the Soviet Union had to develop on its own with the result that its economy was practically autarkic. Right up to the Second World War its foreign trade fell short of the pre- revolutionary level, amounting in 1938 to only a fraction of the 1913 volume. After the war, the situation altered a great deal. Foreign trade began to grow faster than national income. In 1970, it exceeded, in comparable prices, the prerevolutionary level 5.7-fold and the 1938 level 20.2-fold. This mainly refers to trade with socialist countries.

p Compared with national income, the volume of Soviet foreign trade is relatively small, amounting to about 7 per cent. The experience of other countries, however, testifies that both international division of labour and foreign trade can decisively contribute to social reproduction provided 124 that a much larger share of national income is realised through foreign trade—at least three times more than is the case with the Soviet Union at present. In such countries as Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, the GDR, Hungary and Yugoslavia export trade accounts for a fifth to a third of national income. But the socialist international division of labour is steadily advancing. And since reproduction in the Soviet Union takes place in the context of the socialist world system, one must not only know what role the international division of labour plays in the economic development of the Soviet Union, but foresee what impact Soviet economic foreign relations may have on reproduction in other socialist countries.

p The most significant division of labour among the socialist countries has been established, and is developing, in raw material production and engineering and in the sphere of science and technology.

p Keeping up the supply of raw material was already an international problem under capitalism. With the growth of the socialist productive forces, this problem becomes even more significant. Analysis of the foreign economic relations of the CMEA countries shows that with respect to the primary products industries there exists a marked and increasing division of labour among the socialist countries. Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, the GDR, Hungary, Poland, Rumania and the USSR are bound up with one another by deliveries of coal, coaking coal, and coke. Oil and oil products are supplied to the European socialist countries mainly by the Soviet Union and partly by Rumania. Iron and steel works in Hungary, Poland and Czechoslovakia and, to a certain extent, in Rumania and Bulgaria are based on Soviet iron ore. Bulgaria, the GDR, Hungary and Rumania import large quantities of cast iron and rolled stock. The Soviet Union is a major consumer of Hungarian bauxite, Polish sulphur, and non-ferrous metal ores and metals from a number of countries. Nearly all the European socialist countries use Soviet timber and fertilisers. The textile mills of Poland, the GDR and Hungary use Soviet cotton. The Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia, the GDR, Hungary, Rumania and Bulgaria jointly operate electric power stations.

p Some socialist countries get nearly all the key raw materials they want through reciprocal deliveries. Taken 125 as a whole, the CMEA countries obtain via reciprocal deliveries 98 per cent of their total coal imports, up to 96 per cent of their oil and oil products, about 80 per cent of their iron ore, and the bulk of non-ferrous metals, phosphorous and potassic raw materials, timber and cotton. Without reciprocal deliveries of raw materials, neither individual economies nor the world socialist economy at large would be able to function. Soviet raw materials predominate in the socialist countries’ reciprocal trade in raw materials. In 1971-75 the Soviet Union will deliver still more raw material and fuel to the European CMEA countries. Soviet oil deliveries will increase from 138 million tons in 1966-70 to 243 million tons in 1971-75, while the deliveries of natural gas will increase from 8 to 33 thousand million cubic metres, electric power from 14 to 42 thousand million kilowatt hours, and iron ore (in terms of metal) from 72 to 94 million tons.

p Division of labour among the socialist countries with respect to raw material production has exploded the notions entertained by bourgeois economists. Whereas under capitalism the supply of raw materials is the exclusive function of colonies, under socialism such a highly industrialised country as the Soviet Union has become the principal supplier of raw materials. Some unscrupulous economists seek to explain this fact by alleging that this is due to the “high prices" of raw materials which, they claim, are dictated by the Soviet Union. But such “explanations” will satisfy only absolutely uninformed people. The socialist countries, as a rule, stick to the prices quoted on capitalist world markets. Hence, no prices are, in fact, dictated. The real answer lies in the principles of socialist division of labour, which are altogether different from capitalist principles, and in proletarian internationalism, in mutual support and the aid that advanced socialist countries afford to those that are less developed.

p The same line for equal, progressive development of the socialist countries is clearly demonstrable from the division of labour in the engineering industry. All the socialist countries produce machinery and participate in the division of labour between engineering works. A relatively even distribution of the engineering industry in all the socialist countries is a vital factor in equalising their economic levels. Co-operation in the engineering industry is especially closely 126 linked with application of the results of the scientific and technological revolution. Countries but recently backward and entirely dependent on the import of industrial equipment, have now become major exporters of machinery. So, Bulgaria, which formerly exported no plant whatever, now does so on a large scale, and to advanced countries as well. It sells the GDR electric cars, telphers, metal-working and wood-working machines, farm and textile machinery. Czechoslovakia imports Bulgarian metal-working machines, equipment for the food industry, and storage batteries. The Soviet Union buys from Bulgaria plant for the food and light industries, farm machinery, vineyard tractors, electric cars, electric motors, etc.

p Radical changes in the situation of formerly less developed socialist countries in the capital goods market may be observed from the rising share of machinery in their total exports. Before the revolution Bulgaria exported no machines at all, while less than one per cent of total exports from Poland and Rumania in 1948 were of machinery. In 1967, however, machines and equipment accounted for about 20 per cent of Rumania’s total exports, over 25 per cent of Bulgaria’s, and 36 per cent of Poland’s.

p Important sections of the Soviet national economy are supplied with equipment made in the CMEA countries. Between 1966 and 1970 Soviet industry received from the CMEA countries plant for 54 chemical factories. More than 35 per cent of the tonnage of sea-going vessels added to the Soviet fleet in this period was built in the shipyards of the CMEA countries. At the same time, a third of the machines imported by the CMEA countries come from the Soviet Union—power-engineering and oil-well drilling plant, tractors and lorries, farm machinery, excavators, road-building machines, and complete sets of plant for factories in leading industries.

p With the help of Soviet equipment, socialist countries have completed or are constructing major industrial projects and are able to launch new branches of industry. In these countries between 1966 and 1970 more than 300 industrial and agricultural enterprises were built or reconstructed with Soviet technical assistance. Co-operation in machine-building has become one of the most notable features of the socialist countries’ economic relations. In 1970, reciprocal deliveries 127 of plant and machinery accounted for about 41 per cent of the total amount of business transacted between CMEA countries.

p The socialist international division of labour in the engineering industry has resulted more observably than in the case of other economic branches in inter-state specialisation and co-ordination of production. The CMEA countries have accordingly concluded a large number of bilateral and multilateral agreements concerning, among others, such fields as the production of computer-controlled metal-cutting lathes, provision of material and technical facilities for a container transportation system, manufacture of lorries, transport and farm machinery, inland sea-and rivercraft, glass and ceramic articles. A more detailed division of labour has been outlined in the production of plant for atomic power stations to meet the requirements of the CMEA countries before and after 1980. Joint operation of bearing plants has kept the co-operating countries supplied with bearings at much lower cost. Soviet production of motor-cars at Togliatti is being co-ordinated with factories in Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland and Yugoslavia.

p Division of labour and co-ordination of research in the socialist countries are essential to the rapid and systematic progress of the scientific and technological revolution. The scale of research today is so vast, and so costly, that none but very large and very rich countries are able to engage in it to full extent. But international division of labour and co-operation in research yield most effective results. The following figures illustrate the scale on which the socialist countries co-operate in science and research.

p In accordance with the Comprehensive Programme, cooperation agreements concerning eighteen research and development efforts have been signed by competent bodies of CMEA members, and twenty co-ordination centres, seven research co-ordination councils, two international research bodies, and one research and development association have been set up. Co-operation is mostly organised through coordination centres, in which over 500 research and design establishments in CMEA countries take part. The scope of co-operation with respect to scientific and technological forecasting, co-ordination of scientific and technological research, and exchange of scientific and technological knowhow has 128 been widened. The organising role in these efforts belongs to the Scientific and Technological Go-operation Committee instituted by the 25th CMEA Session.

p In 1971, agreements were signed on scientific and technical co-operation between Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, the GDR, Hungary, Mongolia, Poland, Rumania and the Soviet Union in seven fields and problems of science and technology. It is intended to set up international co-ordination centres on the following problems: research into biophysics; development of biomedical instruments and apparatuses for research and clinical medicine; anti-corrosion measures; protection of nature; all-round utilisation of wood; development of new kinds of pesticides and biological and other methods of plant protection, and overall investigation of the effect exerted by the means of protection on environment; development of new industrial catalysts and improvement of those in current use.

We see from these facts that the socialist international division of labour is of great and ever-growing significance to the countries of the world socialist system. The Directives on the Ninth Five-Year Economic Development Plan of the USSR for 1971-75, envisage a number of new concrete steps towards a systematic development of close economic and scientific-technical co-operation between the USSR and other fraternal countries, and of the socialist division of labour between them.

p Progress in the socialist international division of labour calls for a further improvement of economic management. To keep the socialist countries supplied with raw materials adequately and in the most rational way, to increase specialisation and co-operation in the engineering, chemical and other industries, to advance co-operation in the sphere of science and technology, to accomplish the co-ordinated technical re-equipment of the countries of the world socialist system, to improve the pattern of foreign trade, including prices—to do all this, the socialist nations must co-ordinate their long-term and five-year development plans. In fact, the CMEA countries have already started their common work on the next five-year (1976-80) and long-term plans. 129 The aim of the effort is to make their economic and scientific-technological co-operation an increasingly integrated process, enhance the role played by science in defining the prospects of development, and master the latest scientific achievements in the shortest possible time. The plans for 1976-80 will be drafted bearing in mind the co-ordination of the longer-term plans—up to 1990.

p Planning of foreign trade is also being improved. Facts testify that the plans of foreign trade are systematically overfulfilled. Under the seven-year plan for the economic development of the USSR, Soviet trade with other socialist countries was scheduled to increase more than 1.5-fold in 1965 as against 1958. Actually, however, it increased more than 1.7-fold. In the five-year period (1966-70), trade between the Soviet Union and other socialist countries increased by nearly 50 per cent. Between 1971 and 1975, the Soviet Union’s trade with the other CMEA countries is to increase by another 50 per cent. The annual rate of increase will be 30 per cent.

p Socialist international division of labour demands special forms of co-operation. Accordingly, while the present forms of economic organisation are being improved, new ones, tailored to suit the needs of internationalised production, are being tried out.

p We believe that co-operation between socialist countries in developing and financing branches and lines of production that are of common interest to all or a group of socialist countries is highly promising. We have seen a proof of this in the joint financing of enterprises producing raw materials (oil extraction in the USSR, coal-mining in Poland, potash fertiliser production in the GDR, copper mining in Bulgaria, exploitation of the Danube water resources, etc.). It is a well-known fact that the primary products industries need heavier investment and take several times longer to start paying back than the manufacturing industries. This is one important reason why the per capita rate of investment is higher in the Soviet Union than in other countries. Co-operation makes it possible to spread capital investment rationally among the countries consuming the raw materials. Usually the crediting party supplies the necessary material and plant, receiving manufactured goods in return. Completed projects are the property of the countries on whose 130 soil they are situated. This form of inter-state co-operation is recognised as most convenient and will undoubtedly continue to develop.

p Also promising are international organisations which arrange for specialisation of enterprises, comprehensive and rational exploitation of available capacity, and exchange of specific goods (e.g., Intermetal). The international operations of the Hungarian Medicor group of factories, one of the world’s biggest producers of medical equipment, provide an interesting example of organisation. The firm co-operates with the Polish Varimex, Czechoslovak Kovo, Soviet Medexport, and the Intermed in the GDR in supplying complete sets of hospital equipment to third countries. The agreement of the five producer-suppliers whose enterprises employ tens of thousands of workers, engineers and scientists is based on mutual advantage and financial liability for each partner in the event of his failing to perform a contract.

p Besides providing market facilities, the amalgamation achieves stable specialisation, co-operation, modernisation and considerable expansion of production. In the power industry, the CMEA recommended going over gradually to integrated power grids embracing a group of countries. The Mir international power grid has marked the beginning of such integration. From the economic point of view, this may be regarded as the emergence of a network of international socialist cartels handling important organisation and economic problems concerned with the progress of the socialist international division of labour. All-round introduction of cost-accounting and a higher rate of profit are of essential significance to international socialist cartel agreements. It is quite probable that in some cases the introduction of cartels will make for greater participation in industrial management.

p Co-operation between socialist countries may also give rise to what can be described as socialist concessions. For instance, the Soviet Union has made available to Bulgaria some forest areas on certain terms. These are worked by Bulgarian lumbermen with their tools. Socialist countries enjoying international credit may launch other kinds of industrial and trading organisations. Cartels may also prove useful for exploiting the raw material resources of developing 131 countries on mutually profitable terms and for helping them advance their national economies.

p The socialist world has entered a new period of development when, thanks to the technological revolution, it can use much more fully the great potentialities inherent in its social system. Time increasingly bears out the correctness of the course for closer co-operation and socialist economic integration.

p Even the initial steps towards realising the Comprehensive Programme have demonstrated the palpable advantages of the socialist type of international economic relations, combining the national and international interests of all the CMEA member-countries. Since 1972, when Cuba joined the CMEA, this international association includes nations of three continents.

p Today we can see the general outline of the colossal development programme of the socialist community of nations, populated by 382 million, whose realisation will nearly double its industrial potential in ten years.

As they use together the results of the technological revolution and the advantages of the socialist division of labour, the CMEA member-countries by no means confine themselves to its limits. As the 26th CMEA Session, held in 1972, again stressed in its communique, the CMEA membercountries “will heretofore further in every possible way the development of world trade and the all-round industrial, scientific and technical cooperation between the membercountries and third nations on a mutually beneficial basis, and will promote the economic and cultural progress of developing nations. The measures and projects put forth in the Comprehensive Programme are open to all peace-loving nations which are free to join in wholly or partially realising the Comprehensive Programme.”