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p Vladimir Marakhov, C. Sc. (Phil.)
and Yuri Meleshchenko, D. Sc. (Phil.)

p Some of the substantial qualitative and quantitative features of the scientific and technological revolution may be highlighted by comparing it with the development of science and technology in the past.

p Its most general qualitative feature may be described as follows. This is history’s first scientific and technological revolution. It is not merely a coincidence in time of revolution in science and technology. There have been such coincidences in the past. What was absent, however, was the profound interrelation and interdependence inherent in the present-day development of science and technology.

p These are bilateral relations. On the one hand, all the major achievements of present-day technology are based on fundamental, revolutionary discoveries in the natural sciences; the range of scientific subjects which find technical application is being steadily expanded, and the time required for their application reduced. Today science is preparing the ground for the further revolutionary development of technology. The higher rate of development of science compared with that of technology and production is expressed as a characteristic feature of the scientific and technological revolution in the formula proposed by Soviet scientist G. Dobrov: w dT dP where d is development, S—science, dt >’dl 145 T—technology, P—production and t—time. But this is only one aspect of the current revolution.  [145•1 

p On the other hand, scientific progress rests on the modern machine industry. As Lenin pointed out, “large-scale machine industry alone introduces a radical change, throws manual skill overboard, transforms production on new, rational principles, and systematically applies science to production".  [145•2 

p Without considering the role of the machine industry and also automation and electrification of production in social progress, it is impossible to understand the very essence of the scientific and technological revolution, which entails radical changes in science itself, its industrialisation and the increasingly frequent transformation of the work of scientists into a “variety of industrial labour”. Without all the modern installations, such as proton accelerators, cyclotrons, nuclear reactors, it is impossible to develop the physics of elementary particles, nuclear physics, etc. A scientific experiment depends not only on the use of large and intricate installations, the erection of which has become possible only in the present stage of industrial development, but on industry itself. More and more often scientific experiment has to go beyond the bounds of the laboratory and can only be satisfied by testing on an industrial or even cosmic scale. Though science in its powerful leap-like advances outstrips technology and production, its development is still directly influenced by production and technological requirements. The determining role of production and technology in relation to science can be symu r 11 j xu r 11 dPidT^dS¹ bolically expressed in the following way:   dT^’ d7 dt  ’ where P¹ is the quantitative characteristic of production, T^J—technology, S¹—science and t—time.

p This formula might appear to exclude the previously cited Dobrov formula. This is not so, however. Whereas the first formula reveals the spiritual factor as being in advance of the material factors (“spiritual” here implies the producing, 146 constructive function of the mind, which not only reflects but also “ideally creates" the world), while the second formula reveals the determining role of the material factors ( production and technology) in respect of the spiritual factor (science). Both formulas are correct at one and the same time, since they merely reveal different aspects of the interaction of the material and spiritual factors. The recognition of this is relevant to modelling scientific and technological progress and to an understanding of its essence. It can be concretely expressed in figures and graphs.

p The interaction of science and technology is naturally subject to the influence of other social factors, such as the social system, economic incentives, wars, etc. However, it is a fact that the revolutionary processes taking place today in science and technology are interwoven and form a single process definable as the scientific and technological revolution.

p This revolution is a general process involving in one way or another the entire system of science and technology. Now let us examine its two components, taking science and technology separately, since, despite the unity of their presentday revolutionary development, their qualitative changes are of a specific character.

p As far as science is concerned, this implies: (a) fundamental renewal of factual material and information; (b) intrusion into principally new spheres, uncovering of the laws of nature, consciousness and society on new levels of knowledge; (c) radical changes in the methodology of scientific research connected with the wide-scale introduction of mathematical and cybernetic methods; (d) intensification of the processes of the differentiation and integration of sciences, setting up of a unified system of scientific knowledge; (e) industrialisation of science, transformation of its technical basis. Thus, this revolution covers all aspects of science and is taking place in virtually all branches of scientific knowledge.

p In the technological sphere, revolutionary changes affect all its branches and all its aspects, and are characterised by: (a) radical transformation of the material substratum of technical equipment and technical systems connected with utilisation of fundamentally new materials or radical changes in the properties of traditional materials; (b) utilisation of 147 new sources of energy, processes and forms of the movement of matter; (c) qualitative change in the elements and structure of technological systems connected with creating machineless technology, the construction and utilisation of control and logical devices; (d) radical changes in the functions performed by machinery, with automation turning over to mechanisms more and more functions of an intellectual nature.

p The scientific and technological revolution has virtually embraced all the major spheres of social life—production, transport, information and communications media, public health and living conditions, and is actively intruding in the sphere of culture, art, etc. But its primary influence has been on the nature, rates and trends in the development of its components—science and technology.

p In the past two or three decades the scientific potential of society has made a qualitative leap. And this manifests itself both in the more or less steady rise in the number of scientific workers, engineers, agronomists, etc., and in the noticeably changing correlation between the above-mentioned categories and the remainder of the population engaged in production. Between 1940 and 1950 the number of scientific workers in the USSR increased from 98,300 to 162,500 persons, i.e., less than twofold. During the next decade their number more than doubled, reaching 354,200. The next 100 per cent increase was achieved within six years and by 1966 the number of scientific workers reached 712,400, while by 1970 the figure was 927,700. It is difficult to predict how long this rate of increase in the number of scientific workers will be sustained. Obviously, it cannot be a permanent process, for the doubling would occur even more frequently and the entire population would very soon be absorbed in the sphere of scientific activities.

p Some professions are being replaced by entirely new ones. The post-war decades have seen a sharp growth in the number of specialists in cybernetics, the atomic industry, space vehicles construction and design, rocketry, quantum generators, etc. The automation of production alone has brought about more than 20 new specialities. Hence an unprecedented increase in the need for trained personnel.

p The scientific and technological revolution has led to a profound awareness of the enhanced role of science in 148 society, and has elevated the guidance of science and the training of scientific personnel to the level of state policy. The President of the USSR Academy of Sciences, M. Keldysh, has pointed out that throughout the world science is becoming an object of state activity. This is the new feature which has been developed to the full since the Second World War. And whereas the Soviet Union was the first country where numerous scientific institutes made their appearance and where the state organisation of science came into being, gradually all countries followed suit and not only socialist, but highly developed capitalist countries, too.

p Characteristically, under capitalism the personnel requirements of the scientific and technological revolution are met in a contradictory way. Along with stepping up the training of one’s own experts, the intellectual resources of other countries are also exploited. The United States has become the centre of a peculiar form of colonialism in the sphere of scientific and technological progress. In the decade, 1957- 67, emigration of highly trained specialists from Western Europe to the United States increased sixfold. Between 1949 and 1964, 85,000 foreign scientists, doctors and engineers, including many from the developing countries, settled in the United States.

p Thus, the exploitation of the resources of one country by another under capitalism also gives rise to new forms of social contradictions. Writing about the development of bourgeois society under the impact of technological progress, Lenin pointed out: “This progress, like the progress capitalism makes in every other field, is accompanied by the ’ progress’ of contradictions, i.e., by their intensification and expansion."  [148•1 

p Under socialism, however, the planned economy provides for conscious guidance of the changes taking place in the pattern of personnel occupied in science and technology, and one of its aims is to make best use of socialism’s advantages over capitalism in this sphere.

p The scientific and technological revolution changes the structure of the subjective elements of the productive forces, the social composition of the labour force, and there is an absolute and relative increase in the number of brain 149 workers (scientists, technicians, engineers, agronomists, livestock experts, etc.) engaged in the sphere of production. Thus, the number of workers in the Soviet economy engaged mainly in intellectual work amounted to 2,888,000 in 1926, to 13,821,000 in 1939, to 20,495,000 in 1959 and to 27,360,000 in 1967. The approximate figure for 1969 was 30,000,000. There has been a noticeable change in the proportion of engineers and other technical personnel, on the one hand, to workers, on the other, with the percentage of the former increasing. The number of workers in new, highly skilled trades is constantly rising. There is an increase in the general educational level of the working class. Whereas in 1959 out of every thousand personnel employed in industry 386 had either secondary or higher education, by the beginning of 1971 this figure had risen to 550.

p A change in the technical basis of production, the nature of labour, professional skill, etc., is a necessary condition for overcoming the essential differences between mental and manual workers due to the automation of production. Whereas in the prewar years there were only a few automatic and semi-automatic lines in individual branches of the Soviet engineering industry, in 1967 some 50,000 mechanised and automatic lines were in operation in the country. More than 6,000 such lines are annually being commissioned, while some ten per cent of the already operating lines are modernised due to the improvement in technological processes.

p Human adjustment to the new conditions of the scientific and technological revolution—the mechanisation and automation of production—is an important task. In the USSR this is carried out on the basis of the state economic development plans which envisage the training of new specialists through the system of higher and secondary educational establishments, wide-scale polytechnical instruction in the schools, vocational training, etc. A major factor in solving this problem is social planning at individual enterprises. Such planning envisages conditions for overcoming the essential differences between mental and manual workers (mechanisation of labour-consuming processes, elimination of heavy manual work, improvement in technical training and general education, etc.). This makes it possible to take into account the peculiarities of technical progress at 150 individual enterprises. Social development plans are already being drawn up and implemented at many enterprises in Moscow, Leningrad, Sverdlovsk and Perm regions, in Lvov and other Soviet cities.

p The 1950s saw the emergence among Western ideologists of the theory of the “Second Industrial Revolution”. This theory claims that the scientific and technological revolution automatically transforms capitalism into a new society free of its former antagonistic contradictions, and leads to a new civilisation. Herbert Marcuse, for instance, thinks that, by substituting automated labour for machine-manual labour, the revolution in technology would inevitably “revolutionise the whole society" and this would mean “transcendence toward a new civilisation".  [150•1 

p These conceptions which have already been criticised in detail by a number of Marxist researchers show a one-sided exaggeration of the role of technological progress, which is automatically identified with social progress. They ignore the specific features of the dominating socio-economic relations, exclude the need for a revolutionary transformation of society and, finally, uphold the inviolability of the capitalist system.

p Soviet authors relate the scientific and technological revolution with the industrial revolution in a positive way. First of all, what kind of industrial revolution is it? I. Dvorkin, for instance, maintains that the term of industrial revolution implies an upheaval in the relations of production, while the new technology is merely its prerequisite and basis.

p Industrial revolution is also presented in current Soviet writings on the subject as the concluding stage of the scientific and technological revolution, meaning a situation when automated production begins to oust machine-factory production qualitatively. At the same time it is stressed that the scientific and technological upheaval will be followed by a “production revolution”, which will entail a fundamental change in the social relations of production, final amalgamation of all the individuals participating in production, elimination of all unskilled labour, and institution of complete social equality for all members of society.

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p Another point of view is that the scientific and technological revolution is simultaneously an industrial revolution. Although these concepts are not identical, they nevertheless can be considered to be of the same order, reflecting the upheaval in the technological basis of the production process. Those who share this point of view do not include as part of the industrial revolution the upheaval in the system of social relations in production.

p It is generally known that the industrial revolution of the 18th-19th centuries started with the introduction of machine production. The employment of machines resulted in a change in the technological method of linking man with the means of labour and at the same time led to new social combinations of production processes, to a change in the class structure of society, to the division of labour and a radical change in the social relations of production. Dealing with the characteristic features of the first industrial revolution, Lenin pointed out that during the time of Sismondi “there began that sharp and abrupt change of all social relations under the influence of machines (note, under the influence of machine industry, and not of ‘capitalism’ in general), a change which is known in economic science as the industrial revolution".  [151•1 

p The scientific and technological revolution of today transforms the technological basis of production as well as the pattern of the productive forces of society. This is primarily linked with automation, as a result of which men and machines are mutually liberated, as it were, from the restrictions imposed by man’s psychological and physiological potentialities. The ties between man and machine are not severed by the automation of production but acquire more flexible forms; changes take place in the technological method of linking man with the means of labour. This, in turn, is accompanied by changes in the social combination of production processes, and leads to a definite transformation of the division of labour, to qualitatively new elements in social relations of production. Such changes go beyond the framework of the scientific and technological revolution and cannot be reduced to its characteristic features. It may quite naturally be suggested, however, that changes in the 152 technological methods of production which go beyond the framework of the scientific and technological revolution are one of the decisive elements of the industrial revolution making for a qualitative break-up of the entire system of the social relations of production.

p When speaking of a radical break-up of social relations of production one should have in mind that the extent of this break-up is to a considerable degree conditioned by the entire system of existing social relations. Thus, the first industrial revolution started after a social revolution. For instance, in Britain the industrial revolution proper was preceded by the bourgeois revolution of the 17th century and the radical break-up of the social relations of production that accompanied the industrial revolution in the 18th and 19th centuries should not be identified with the appearance of capitalist production relations in general. This break-up was connected with a change in the mode of production and above all meant an acceleration in the socialisation of production, influenced by the spreading of machine technology, the break-up of the economic relations which had survived up to a definite point after the bourgeois revolution and which were in accord, using Marx’s words, with the conservative technical basis of production, with the manufacturing industry and with production that as yet retained comparatively secluded centres of a natural economy. As a result of the break-up of the social relations of production, the first industrial revolution facilitated the further development of capitalism.

p Unlike the first industrial revolution, which initiated the process of the socialisation of production, the industrial revolution which we believe is going on today provides the prerequisites for completing this process. This leads to a sharpening of the basic contradiction of capitalism, the contradiction between the social nature of production and the private method of appropriation. However, even under capitalism, following changes in the technological relations of production and the deepening of the social nature of the productive forces, the socio-economic structure and the class structure of society are undergoing changes. The social nature of the productive forces is partially manifested in the concentration of finance capital, in the setting up of large monopolies, trusts, syndicates, etc. We, therefore, consider 153 it correct to say that an industrial revolution is also taking place in the developed capitalist countries.

p Under capitalism, however, this industrial revolution cannot be carried out to the end and only prepares the material and technical conditions for the victory of socialism. Under socialism, a change in the technological method of production based on the scientific and technological revolution encounters no resistance on the part of the new production relations and leads to the formation of a new type of productive forces, to a qualitative transformation of the entire system of the social relations of production, to the communist method of production.

p One of the essential results of the scientific and technological revolution is the contradiction at present to be observed between the artificial environment created by society for the benefit of man and the natural environment which man has not created but the material resources of which he utilises. On the one hand, there is the increasing power of the productive forces, resulting from the scientific and technological revolution, which provides the means for creating a high level of comfort in everyday life (comfortable housing, elegant clothes and fine furniture, high-speed transportation facilities, universal means of communications, etc.). On the other hand, the same growing might of the productive forces increases the rotation of matter and energy between nature and society, facilitates a more intensive utilisation of and change in the surface of the earth’s crust, its water and air basins, which frequently leads to a violation of the established equilibrium between natural processes providing optimum conditions for the life of human society and the vital activities of the human organism. A new by-product of the scientific and technological revolution is the repeated radioactive contamination of the atmosphere, some parts of the earth, the seas and the oceans. At present we are, therefore, confronted with a greater need for compensatory measures, neutralising the influence of the by-products of technological progress on natural conditions. The protection of natural resources should become not only a principle of nation-wide management of the economy, but a matter for wide-scale international co-operation.

p Along with the optimism over the prospects of social advance, of providing an abundance of material and spiritual 154 values, apprehensions also arise as to the exploitation of the achievements of the scientific and technological revolution. An irresponsible utilisation of the resources of nature that come under man’s control could lead to unparalleled destruction. This means that today, as never before, people and states have greater responsibility for the fate of the Earth, for using the scientific and technological achievements attained through the genius of man.

p “Not we alone, but the coming generations should also be able to use and enjoy all the gifts of our country’s splendid natural environment. We are also prepared to participate in collective international schemes for nature protection and the rational use of natural resources,"  [154•1  states the Report of the CC of the CPSU to the 24th Party Congress.

p The scientific and technological revolution represents a break-through to a new level of freedom as recognised necessity. However, mankind is as yet not free in the face of many of the social consequences stemming from this revolution. This means that not all features of the scientific and technological progress (including its negative results) are as yet within the sphere of man’s control. Its negative results work retroactively both on this progress and the social and living conditions of people. Society’s control over these causes is so far only in the first stage of forecasting.

Complete freedom arises only when all the results and the causes of social history come under man’s control. “Only from that time,” Engels wrote, “will man himself, with full consciousness, make his own history—only from that time will the social causes set in movement by him (our italics. —V.M., Y.M.) have, in the main and in a constantly growing measure, the results intended by him. It is the ascent of man from the kingdom of necessity to the kingdom of freedom."  [154•2  Such a state of society cannot be achieved under capitalism. Socialism and communism alone open up prospects for complete control not only over the scientific and technological revolution but also over its social consequences.