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p Vladimir Kollontai, D. Sc. (Econ.)

p The second half of the 20th century has been characterised by the complex interplay of two seemingly unrelated developments—the revolution in science and technology and the collapse of the colonial system.

p On the one hand, the unprecedented progress of science and technology opens up staggering opportunities for the development of productive forces and the solution of economic problems. In less than a century, man has not only learned to fly; he has actually penetrated into outer space. The achievements of previous millennia double and treble within decades. Life is changing at an incredible pace, translating the most daring dreams and projects into reality.

p On the other hand, a good half of the earth’s population are to this day living just as their distant ancestors did. Most of the Asian and African countries have won political independence but they still have to overcome the economic and cultural lag caused by decades of colonial and imperialist domination. These countries are beset by all kinds of involved and interrelated problems. They have to set up a modern industrial apparatus, mobilise huge material and manpower resources and see to their rational employment, reorganise relations in industry and society, radically alter their position in the world economy, and so on. The low economic potential, rapid growth of population, widespread poverty and the acute food problem, the preponderance of extremely backward political and social institutions make 211 it particularly difficult for them to shake off the colonial legacy and build a new way of life.

p The manifold results of the scientific and technological revolution and the intricate complex of problems arising before the developing countries will, each in its own way, exert a tremendous influence on the course of society’s development in the next few decades. Scientists the world over are trying to predict the probable scope and character of this influence. Unfortunately, however, they generally pursue matters separately, concentrating either on the problems arising before the developing countries or on the effect of the scientific and technological revolution on the various aspects of life in the industrialised countries.

p It is quite clear that the effect of this revolution on the Asian, African and Latin American countries will increase year by year. As natural forces are conquered one after another, unprecedented productive capacity developed and economic management and patterns improved, new opportunities arise for handling many of these countries’ problems. The construction of the mammoth hydroelectric station at Aswan, for instance, enables Egypt to solve many of its power-supply and irrigation problems. Even at the present technological level, the Afro-Asian countries could easily obtain annual increment of between six and eight per cent of the GNP and so double their present per capita income in fifteen to twenty years. But real as it is, this prospect runs into certain difficulties of an economic and social nature.

The quality and extent of the influence of the scientific and technological revolution on “third world" countries will largely depend on which path of development—capitalist or non-capitalist—they may choose to follow.

p Any discussion of the impact of the scientific and technological revolution on the developing countries, if it arose at all, used to be confined to various individual aspects of the problem.

p In the fifties, attention was paid mainly to the changing patterns of raw material and fuel consumption and particularly to the effect of the intensified production of synthetic materials in the economically advanced countries on the 212 developing countries’ exports. Many bourgeois economists emphasised the one point that the progress of science and technology tended to restrict the export possibilities of the Asian and African countries, causing prices to fall and so reducing the developing countries’ export earnings. Of course, synthetic materials, reduced material-product ratio and other changes due to the technological revolution do have an adverse effect on the traditional exports of the Asian and African countries and make it objectively necessary for them to dispose of their old economic and foreign trade patterns without delay. But this was just what the apologists of imperialism would not concede. Moreover, as the colonial system crumbled and the national liberation struggle gained momentum, the imperialists actively sought to increase the number of suppliers of raw material and fuel to Western Europe and North America. Simultaneously they boosted home production of many synthetic materials, lavishly subsidising research in this particular field. The number of producers of identical raw materials was even extended, just in case any of them should cease to be available. Rather than promote the timely reorganisation of the Asian and African economies to suit the objective tendencies of the scientific and technological revolution, the imperialists actually stimulated the overproduction of those economies’ traditional exports. This eagerness to preserve the specialisation of the “third world" in primary goods and fuel continues to exert its crippling effect on Asian, African and Latin American economies to this day.

p In the early sixties, there was a shift of emphasis towards extending research that would have the maximum practical significance for the developing countries. A special UN conference on these problems was held in Geneva in 1963, giving a certain impetus to efforts in this sphere. Researchers began to look into the possibilities of a more comprehensive utilisation of local resources, of adapting to specific local climatic and natural features, etc. Certainly research conducted along such lines may yield definite results. Among other things, it would be useful to investigate the ways and methods of increasing agricultural production in the tropics, of controlling the erosion and impoverishment of soil, of a more comprehensive utilisation of local building materials, and so on. It is well known that in many countries the “green 213 revolution" is exerting a palpable effect on the volume of farm output. Since many countries badly need water, experiments in water-freshening may prove of great value to them. In countries which have to import most of their industrial fuel and power, constructing atomic power plants on the spot may be of considerable value.

But the experience of the past few years has increasingly demonstrated that no adequate solution will be found by attacking the problem piecemeal. One has to gauge accurately the overall effect that the scientific and technological revolution is having, and is likely to have soon, on the retarded economies. This alone offers a clear view of the opportunities and the challenges it makes to the developing countries. At present there is simply not enough information for an exhaustive analysis, but some of the important problems may be considered even now.

p So far the scientific and technological revolution has had but a limited effect on the solution of the problems confronting the developing countries. It has chiefly manifested itself in the construction of some modern enterprises, above all in the fuel-and-power, oil-processing and similar industries. The developing countries have been much less able to benefit from the immense economic potentialities of the rational concentration, specialisation and co-operation of production; in most cases, the economic level of developing countries prevents them from making the most of this major aspect of the scientific and technological revolution. By and large, the latest achievements of science and engineering are applied in the developing countries on a very small scale, in a few isolated fields; besides, their fruits are mostly appropriated by foreign monopolies and companies. On the whole, modern science and engineering are only just beginning to be introduced in certain branches of the economy of Asian and African economies.

p Simultaneously scientific and technological progress tends to widen the gap between the advanced and the developing countries. Figures show that the disparity between these two groups in per capita income is increasing not only absolutely but relatively as well. More important still, the 214 productivity gap and the economic potential gap are also growing.

p What has brought about this situation? How is it likely to develop? And—most important of all—what impedes the broad introduction of modern science and technology in the developing countries?

p Bourgeois scientists often side-step the issue by contending that the scientific and technological revolution assumes forms which are consistent solely with the needs of the industrially advanced countries and would prove unsuitable for the economically retarded areas of the world. The following reasons are usually given to bolster this thesis. Present-day research and development aim primarily at bringing down labour expenditures and raising efficiency (through more investment). In the developing countries, however, investment is restricted for lack of means, while there is an abundance of unskilled labour. Under such circumstances, most bourgeois scientists contend, these countries should orient their plans not on the latest production methods but on another, “interim” or “transitional” technology yet to be developed, by which they usually imply primitive, simplified machines, obsolete production schemes, “various elements of late 19th- or early 20th-century engineering”. Accordingly, it is often suggested that researchers should concentrate on developing “labour-intensive” production methods and “intermediate” technologies suitable for the tropics. Some people go as far as to say that it is necessary to slow down the progress of science and technology in the advanced countries and concentrate entirely on “intermediate” technology, which would supposedly make it easier for the developing countries to solve their internal and external problems.

p A somewhat different variant of the same conception is represented by the following recommendation. To eliminate unemployment, all available venture capital should be distributed more or less evenly among the entire wageearning population, and one and all equipped with the “ intermediate”, “labour-intensive” technology.

p Employment is, indeed, an acute problem in the developing countries, and is made all the worse by insufficient investment. But a development programme hinging on intermediate technology (even though it may relieve unemployment for a time) cannot seriously help the Asian and 215 African countries to secure stable economic growth rates and win a more equal position in the world market. On the contrary, such a programme precludes any long-term solution of their problems. With outdated technology, accumulation can only be small and slow, and such a programme offers no solution to the problem of employment even in times to come.

p The successful experience of a number of socialist countries in overcoming their economic backwardness reveals a different approach to development. They invested the bulk of the capital they were able to muster and concentrate in completely up-to-date projects. The main yardstick applied to investment was the amount and kind of output to be obtained, its value to the national economy, the efficient operation of the projects, etc., rather than the number of new jobs that might be created. Thus a body of modern highly efficient enterprises was established, which accelerated the accumulation of means for modernising other economic sectors and stamping out unemployment. At the same time, since unemployment in its various forms remained at a high level in some socialist countries at the early stages of their development, while investment and production facilities were small and scattered, it was inevitable that there should exist a fairly large sector of small and mediumsized enterprises characterised by a low productivity of labour. Productivity had to be raised considerably in this sector, too, but this was achieved not so much by the introduction of modern machinery as by a whole series of organisational and administrative measures that accompanied it, including a programme for the systematic introduction of co-operatives in agriculture. Success in this sphere exerted a tremendous effect on the entire process of the country’s development, on its forms, rate and prospects.

p In the present conditions, the task facing the developing countries is not so much to “average out" capital investment and introduce “intermediate” technology on a large scale as to find the optimal balance between the various technologies and methods of production and to conduct a well thought-out policy of consistently raising the social productivity of labour and introducing new technology.

p Of course, not all the achievements of the scientific and technological revolution are, at the moment, of equal 216 importance to the developing countries. It is a fact that not all of them are applicable there in the same degree. In some cases it would be unwise to introduce certain costly methods of raising efficiency at the early stages, especially where similar results can be obtained by improving the organisation of production, and so on. In certain cases it may even be advisable to utilise some outdated equipment.

p On the whole, however, it would be unreasonable and unrealistic to think that the scientific and technological revolution could be made to veer from its normal course of raising productivity and directed at building up the “ labour-intensive”, “intermediate” methods of production. Through the ages, man has always endeavoured to multiply the results obtained from so much labour expended. Higher labour productivity is, in the final analysis, the crucial source of the growth of accumulation and the national product at large.

p Furthermore, the developing countries have inherited numerous problems from colonialism. Widespread unemployment, though important, is only one of them. Since they are bound to foreign markets, the developing countries must be concerned about the effectiveness and competitiveness of their industry. They must develop many capital-intensive branches (petrochemistry, power engineering, etc.), which should not be hitched to the science and technology of yesterday; otherwise the entire massive investment programme will soon prove obsolescent and unproductive and will have to be renewed.

p The rapid increase in population in many areas, the worsening food situation and growing poverty also compel the developing countries to raise productivity as the only means of making production grow faster than population.

p Thus, the very need to overcome economic backwardness prompts the developing countries to adopt a strategy of development which presupposes an overall growth of productivity and of competitiveness in the foreign markets. And this means that the scientific and technological revolution, which raises productivity, decreases the materialproduct ratio in industry, brings forth large industrial complexes, and so on, is of great potential value to the developing countries.

One should, however, remember that the revolution in 217 science and technology does not end with the construction of large and costly industrial facilities; it has also to do with the rational organisation and management of production, remoulding the totality of relations of production, improvement of planning and the methods of social analysis and elaboration of the scientific theory of social development. These aspects of the scientific and technological revolution are of decisive significance to the developing countries.

p By increasing their store of knowledge, by mastering current discoveries in physics, genetics and chemistry, and by applying the most recent achievements of the social sciences and the advanced socialist experience of socioeconomic development, the Asian, African and Latin American nations can find a way out of their present plight.

p The most essential thing, in this writer’s opinion, is to form a clear idea of what is actually hampering the broad introduction of the achievements of modern science and technology in the developing countries.

p Scientific and technological innovation in Asian and African countries comes up against the same obstacles that are generally holding back the economic and social progress of these countries, viz., the low level of the productive forces, archaic social and production relations, and dependence on the capitalist world economic system. Overcoming economic backwardness means solving a host of complex economic problems, such as mobilising and utilising available resources, expanding the sphere of commodity-money relations, changing the structure of the national economy, drawing the nation’s entire labour resources into production, and training one’s own cadres. Simultaneously a number of social problems have to be tackled. Though it offers new opportunities of overcoming the economic lag, the scientific and technological revolution, in some respects, complicates the problems the developing countries have to face. Thus, most contemporary technical advances provide for higher productivity by raising the assets-products ratio and placing better and more expensive equipment at the disposal of every operative. New production methods and plant require heavier capital investment and larger markets. Consequently, 218 in this respect the scientific and technological revolution aggravates the problems of accumulation and the market problem, which are acute enough as it is.

p Socialisation of production, large industrial complexes, necessarily imply the development of a ramified but clearcut pattern of interrelation between economic branches and areas. When a new modern enterprise is being set up, it has to be properly supplied with fuel, raw material, semi- manufactures; there must be an effective system of material and technical supply, an efficient transportation system, an adequate market, and so on. In other words, a modern enterprise implies the existence of numerous associated branches; the introduction of new production methods and plant inevitably entails a serious reorganisation of the present economic structure, the break-up of the old proportions and ties and substitution by new and more complicated ones. There arise the difficult problems of determining the optimal economic pattern and creating the most effective mechanism of economic programming and regulation capable of translating the optimum into practice.

p Economic development has always been attended by change in the economic pattern. But in countries which were in the van of technological and economic development such structural changes went off more smoothly and gradually. In past centuries, important scientific and technical discoveries were few and far between. Each new discovery or invention was introduced in the context of the most developed and modern economic standards of the period. The structural changes incidental to the introduction of new production methods and facilities in the economy of the more advanced countries were, therefore, not dramatic. Such structural changes—albeit at the cost of numerous bankruptcies, considerable unemployment, recurrent economic crises, etc.—could be effected by the spontaneously functioning market mechanism.

p The tasks confronting the developing countries today are, however, much more difficult. These countries have to introduce the achievements of science and technology accumulated over the centuries into a society which is badly lagging behind economically. This necessarily involves great and abrupt changes in the entire economy. At a given stage some sectors, areas and industries develop faster than 219 others. It is, however, indispensable to economic and social progress that the elimination of the old proportions and relations should be accompanied by the emergence of new ones. The scientific and technological revolution greatly complicates the problem by increasing the range of economic fluctuations and giving rise to many new forms of connection. It is no accident that modern Western writers on the developing countries constantly refer to “booms” and “gaps”, which in fact conceal the twin problems of casting off the old pattern and simultaneously ensuring the co-ordination of various sectors of the economy at each separate stage.

p This complex problem cannot be entrusted to private enterprise and the free play of the market. The dimensions of the changes to be worked in the economy are such as to make it impossible for any one entrepreneur to predict the future of his enterprise even for some five or ten years ahead; he cannot foresee the structure of the market, the price level or other important factors indispensable to determining the rate of profit the enterprise may yield. Such estimates can be made only on a national scale, within the framework of a compulsory comprehensive plan of national economic development.

p In order to provide for the sweeping structural changes indispensable to overcoming economic backwardness, a more rational and effective mechanism must be available, a mechanism which involves effective economic planning on a national scale, public ownership of the principal means of production, and effective government control of key economic sectors.

p By increasing the scope of the structural changes indispensable to overcoming economic backwardness the current scientific and technological revolution objectively increases the need for national economic planning and for expanding the economic functions of the state in the developing countries.

p Simultaneously the scientific and technological revolution compels the developing countries to go in for large accumulation and sharpens the alternative between a maximum use of manpower and the introduction of the most efficient machinery. The question of the proportions of national income to be allotted to consumption and accumulation acquires new emphasis. Nothing but extensive and systematic 220 social and economic reforms can remove such obstacles to the introduction of new production methods and plant as the restricted home market, limited capital investments, and shortage of skilled personnel.

p The scientific and technological revolution modifies the international conditions in which the developing countries will have to solve their problems. Until the middle of this century the position of the Asian and African countries in the world economy was largely—perhaps decisively— affected by the following factors. The industrially advanced imperialist powers gradually increased productivity in their key economic sectors, thus making their goods more competitive. The export of such goods to Asia and Africa, however, increased but slowly, discouraged by the secluded natural and semi-natural economies still persisting in those continents, their narrow and specific markets, poor transportation and cheap labour. On the other hand, such factors as cheap native labour, climatic and natural conditions (e.g., convenient location of ore deposits) made Asian and African exports sufficiently competitive.

p In the past few decades the situation has begun to change quite perceptibly. Better transportation facilities and the rapidly developing production of synthetic products have caused many of the old specific features and advantages of the developing countries to disappear. Owing to scientific and technological advance, labour efficiency in the imperialist countries has been increasing at a higher rate, changing the basis of the competitiveness of their goods. In this situation it is becoming more difficult and even impossible for the developing countries to hold their ground in the world economy in the old way. It is a well-known fact that over the past twenty years the developing countries’ share of world exports has dropped to nearly a half of what it used to be, and there is reason to believe that this tendency will continue. At the present scale of the scientific and technological revolution in the imperialist countries, the developing countries cannot rely on cheap labour to keep their goods competitive. Nor will the old ways hold out in the newly-free countries, where the working people are stepping up the struggle for their rights, and achieving definite results.

p The scientific and technological revolution and the changes it has worked in the world economy make the 221 developing countries give serious thought to the general strategy of their development from the standpoint of their foreign economic relations. Bourgeois economists, as a rule, reduce the problem to the choice of suitable industries working for export. No doubt this is an important point but it, too, assumes a different aspect under the present conditions. As production in the developing countries becomes increasingly socialised and various branches of the economy become more interdependent, one has to deal with ever larger production complexes and the profitable operation of a large number of related economic branches. In many instances it may also be found necessary to specialise applied research so as to gear it as far as possible to the staple exports. But choosing the most expedient technical policy is no less important than making a close study of each separate branch. In the final analysis, the developing countries will be able to secure an equal place in the world economy and win economic independence only if they have a highly efficient, modern production apparatus.

p Should they be unable to start modernising their production apparatus rapidly and on a large scale and fail to raise the social productivity of labour (by introducing new machinery, rationalising the organisation and management of production, and so on), the gap between efficiency standards in the imperialist and developing countries will rapidly increase. This, in turn, will not only enhance the positions of the imperialist powers but will breed new forms of neocolonialist expansion and exploitation, which can be seen, incidentally, from the adverse changes in the developing countries’ trade pattern, and their increasing dependence on imports. It is also significant that the imperialists are using the delivery of technical information and patents not only as the chief means of invading other economies but also as an important channel through which they pump hundreds of millions of dollars every year out of Asia, Africa and Latin America.

p At present the scientific and technological revolution economically favours areas and countries with a higher accumulation potential, more mature forms of the social division of labour and larger markets, with more skilled labour on hand, and so on. In other words, the latest achievements of science and technology increase the difference in the 222 economic growth rates of individual countries. This can be seen not only from the relations between the imperialist and developing countries but also from the relations within groups of developing countries themselves.

p Under the impact of modern science and technology, the development of individual nations, those of Asia, Africa and Latin America as well, will unavoidably become still more uneven. Some countries will derive greater benefit than others from the scientific and technological revolution and get rid of their economic backwardness sooner.

p Within individual developing countries, the technological revolution also makes for uneven development of enterprises, industries, areas and social groups. In view of their limited resources, these countries have to mobilise and concentrate large funds in restricted fields in order to introduce modern production methods and plant (which often requires heavy investment). Most often—especially in the initial stages of grappling with economic backwardness— this implies a redistribution of means, a somewhat slower progress of other sections of the economy and certain sacrifices on the part of various social groups.

p Within certain limits, overcoming economic backwardness always involves a measure of unevenness, economic unevenness in particular; the economy is not like a ball that swells symmetrically in all directions as you pump it up. Constructing modern enterprises, investing large funds and mastering new technology, all involve great effort on the part of definite groups of the population, in definite areas and industries, but it also promises great economic rewards. Nevertheless, the character of economic changes, the extent to which economic advance tells on various social groups and areas are far from being uniform. The scope and character of all these processes, the scale of economic and social differentiation accompanying the introduction of modern production methods in developing areas largely depend on the social conditions in which an economy has to develop. They take shape in the course of a tense class struggle involving every sphere of social life, in the course of making the difficult political choice of which socio-economic path of development to take.

p The capitalist path of private enterprise gives rise to numerous problems of utmost complexity. Since promoting 223 development entails concentrating and channelling large means to the more vital concerns, there can be no economic or social justification for placing the key resources in private hands or under private control. The budget, the credit system, the price mechanism and numerous fiscal bodies accumulate resources little by little all over the nation. These resources are, in fact, the contribution of diverse social groups, the working people above all, to national progress. They are social in origin and must belong to society as a whole and be applied in its interest, not in the interest of individual capitalists.

p Apologists of capitalism claim that when put into private hands, public means are used more efficiently. But the experience of many Asian and African countries over the past ten or twenty years shows that whenever the private businessmen did not put their money into land or currency speculations, they invested it in trade or in the production of articles of luxury. As a result, these branches have grown out of all proportion, while many industries vital to speeding economic development continue to lag behind.

The system of private enterprise distorts development, allowing a handful of capitalists and the parasitic bureaucratic elite to enrich themselves systematically by plundering the mass of working people. In capitalist society economic and social differentiation reaches catastrophic proportions so that instead of promoting social progress it becomes a brake on it. In capitalist society, a quarter to a third of the national income is distributed as income on property, i.e., regardless of the direct contributions to national development. The entire process of economic development, the pattern of the economy, the sources of accumulation, etc., reflect the mercenary interests of a small group of the privileged, not of the bulk of the people. It is not accidental that in touching upon the choice with which the developing nations are confronted the CPSU Programme emphasises that “Capitalism is the road of suffering for the people. It will not ensure rapid economic progress nor eliminate poverty; social inequality will increase. The capitalist development of the countryside will ruin the peasantry still more. The workers will be fated either to engaging in back- breaking labour to enrich the capitalists, or to swelling the ranks of the disinherited army of the unemployed. The petty 224 bourgeoisie will be crushed in competition with big capital. The benefits of culture and education will remain out of reach of the people. The intelligentsia will be compelled to sell its talent."  [224•1 

p The socialist path not only abolishes private ownership of the means of production with all its implications but creates a complex of economic, administrative, ideological and other measures which counteract and restrict the social and economic inequality accompanying uneven introduction of advanced production methods and machinery under private ownership.

p Among the socialist countries, this complex of measures is expressed in economic and technical co-operation on mutually advantageous terms, in the rational planning of the international division of labour, in mutually advantageous long-term foreign trade relations, in the gratuitous conveyance of technical information and documents.

p Historically, the socialist approach in the Soviet Union was expressed in the policy of rapid elimination of economic and cultural backwardness which was pursued with respect to the Central Asian republics, Transcaucasia and other parts of the former colonial fringe of tsarist Russia. In the twenties and thirties, large appropriations from the Soviet budget were made to these areas, and specialisation from which they stood to profit and which was backed by a longterm price policy of augmenting the resources of these former colonial outskirts was elaborated for them. Simultaneously an extensive cultural development programme, which included the establishment of national education systems, was implemented, and large numbers of teachers and experts were sent to the Eastern republics.

p The socialist path provides numerous requisites for successful economic development and the introduction of the most up-to-date production methods. Universal education and a wide-ranging health service put quite a different face on the problem of manpower. A ramified system of social security, the socialist policy of economic incentives, the 225 consistent line for a more equal distribution of the national income—all these influence the pattern of demand, creating at each stage of society’s development more uniform and correspondingly stronger demand for consumer goods; thus social policy vigorously promotes the solution of the marketing problem and helps provide the requisites for the introduction of up-to-date mass production. Planning the economy on a national scale opens up great possibilities for the maximum mobilisation of the country’s resources and using them to the best advantage.

p Certainly the “third world" countries which have embarked on the non-capitalist path can hardly expect these measures to provide an instant remedy for the unevenness that emerges in the process of overcoming economic backwardness; even so, such measures can materially restrain it, adapt it to the needs of national development, and subordinate it to the interests of the masses.

At the same time one should bear in mind the experience of the Chinese People’s Republic, which has demonstrated that attempts at leaping over stages of economic development, voluntarism, ultra-Left calls for universal “levelling”, i.e., for an equal distribution of the material goods irrespective of the amount and quality of work contributed by each citizen individually, impede social development, pose numerous complex problems, and put the country back. Economic stimulation can and must be used in a society following the non-capitalist path to encourage extra effort, further training, better quality of production, new techniques, and so on. Of course, the forms and methods of stimulation must be such as to encourage only socially useful activities and breed no parasitic, money-grubbing, profit-seeking tendencies.

p The scientific and technological revolution is remarkable for the diversity of its social effects. As a major field of the competition between capitalism and socialism, it has different social consequences in capitalist and socialist society. In the developing countries, its socio-economic effects have not yet revealed themselves to the full. This is largely due to the fact that in economically retarded countries modern 226 technology and production methods are introduced only on a limited scale. The great majority of developing countries are still part of the capitalist world economy, even if they occupy a special place in it. This is why many Asian, African and Latin American countries still maintain a one-sided orientation on the capitalist West as the one and only source of new means of production, technology and scientific discoveries. Imperialism is making the most of this dependence, holding back the spread of the achievements of science and technology or granting them on onerous and extortionate terms. In the process, the Western monopolies seek to exploit the intellectual resources of the “third world”, its scientific and technical talent. (This is also another instance of the “brain drain".)

p Under the circumstances, stronger ties and more effective co-operation with the socialist community become increasingly essential to destroying the monopoly positions of imperialism in the developing countries and utilising international scientific and technological progress to speed their social and economic development.

While unfolding new vistas before the developing countries, the scientific and technological revolution confronts them with numerous complex problems. It has set afoot novel, often extremely contradictory processes in these countries. In the present age the economic lag can be rapidly removed only if these countries introduce radical socioeconomic reforms, abolish archaic relations of production, carry out democratic agrarian reforms, eliminate foreign monopoly domination, put the social and political life on a thoroughly democratic basis, increase the economic intervention of the state, introduce effective economic planning on a national scale, and draw the bulk of the people into the process of social development.