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p Soviet youth and the Komsomol link their activities with the struggle for greater scientific and technological progress and higher labour efficiency and production standards.

p Young workers, collective farmers and specialists willingly join the struggle because under socialism its outcome corresponds to the interests of both society as a whole, and each worker individually. Scientific and technological progress eases the burden of labour, makes it more interesting, and raises the skill, and cultural and technical level of workers. There is nothing of the kind in capitalist society where the application of the latest achievements in science and engineering only swells the army of the unemployed.

p Numerous sociological investigations in the Soviet Union have proved that the interest of young people in their work largely depends on the scope for creative initiative and opportunities for professional advancement it offers. The older the worker, the less he is dissatisfied with the 47 insufficiently high intellectual level of his work. Young people are usually more dissatisfied with uninteresting work. They want work with creative opportunities.

p Automation, which makes work easier and reduces its monotony, affords man unrestricted opportunities for free and creative activity. This tendency is expressed in the disappearing contrast between work-time and leisure, and in the increasing leisure time which Marx regarded as a condition for the harmonious all-round development of the individual so that each could really contribute to the society "according to his ability”. The direct impact of the machine on man is exhibited in the considerable transformation that has taken place in the nature of work. Mechanical and monotonous operations are giving way to ones that require independent decisions and a growing stock of scientific and engineering knowledge.

p Automation breaks the centuries-old chain which bound man and machine into a single work mechanism. As distinct from manual labour, in which the tool was the only means of subduing nature and as distinct from machine production, where a technical device as mighty as the machine stood between man and nature, automatised production includes a fundamentally important link like the cybernetic device. In its most advanced form automation affords man the maximum of technological freedom. As a result man is no longer tied to his lathe, or technological process.

p Having emancipated his hands, energy and thoughts from the task of compensating the machine, man gains immeasurably more time and opportunities for developing his abilities and talents.

p According to many research results, the advancing automation of production is accompanied by a huge growth in the proportion of mental work and an increasing number of problems requiring a creative approach.

p The 24th Congress of the CPSU made an important contribution to the development of the scientific and technological revolution. Its decisions not only map out the road for intensive scientific and technological progress in general, but also indicate the changes which concern all aspects of material production and all elements of the productive forces.

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p The Directives on the Five-Year Economic Development Plan for 1971-1975 envisage the designing and introduction of radically new tools and machine systems for the complex mechanisation and automation of the most vital production processes; they also envisage high output rates of automatic equipment with programme-digital control. In 1971 the output of programme-controlled lathes was increased by 50 per cent to a total of 2,500 units. They produce as much as 7,500 conventional lathes operated by 12,000 workers. By the end of 1975 the output of programme-controlled lathes will be increased by at least 250 per cent.

p It is planned to start the production of machines and complex systems of automatic control over the technological processes in the metallurgical, chemical, oil-refining, oil, gas and coal industries and to devise automated lines for the building-material, light and food industries.

p The 24th Congress of the CPSU set important tasks in the automation of the registration, collection, storage, transmission and processing of information, designing of complex technical means for a single nation-wide automated system of communication, broad introduction of economic and mathematical methods, employment of electronic computers and organisational techniques and means of communication in management and national economic planning. It is planned to step up the designing and the introduction of automated systems of planning and managing industrial branches, territorial organisations, amalgamations, and enterprises with a view to setting up in the future a national automated system of collecting and processing information.

p The General Secretary of the CC CPSU Leonid Brezhnev said that the complex of branches creating the technical base for the automation of production and management were catalysts of scientific and technological progress. These branches include electronics, radio engineering and instrument-making. The Directives of the 24th Congress of the CPSU set them priority rates of development.

p It is planned, in particular, to increase the production of instruments by 100 per cent, computers, by 140 per cent, and electronic computers, by 160 per cent, to expand the industrial output of modern instruments, apparatus and laboratory equipment for research work, as well as the means 49 of mechanising and automating administrative and engineering work.

p The Congress set the task of introducing progressive, particularly non-stop, technological processes on a wide scale speeding up the development and industrial introduction of new processes in chemical technology and also processes based on electronics. New capacities must employ only modern technology. Measures are envisaged to develop and manufacture new and more economical materials, including polymers and extra-pure materials.

p The Party’s 24th Congress also mapped out a large-scale programme for developing of science, expanding fundamental and applied research work, and speedily introducing their results into the national economy. The Congress posed a problem of historical importance—that of amalgamating and integrating the achievements of the scientific and technological revolution with the advantages of the socialist system of economy, and of developing socialist forms of combining science and production.

p The 24th Congress noted that "the revolution in the development of productive forces, touched off by science and its discoveries, will become increasingly significant and profound".  [49•1  This is why the full-scale programme of social and economic transformations on the basis of the achievements of the scientific and technological revolution, adopted by the Congress, outsteps in importance the margins of a single five-year period. It serves as the foundation for the Party’s long-term plans.

p The success of this programme greatly depends on the readiness of the working masses for these changes in the country’s economy, particularly on the readiness of young people who are now receiving general and professional training.

p This is why young people are actively joining the struggle to accelerate scientific and technological progress. The aims and directions of the work involved are as follows: 

p —to master the achievements of modern science and engineering and introduce them into production; 

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p —to ensure the introduction of scientific methods of work in production and raise the efficiency of production; 

p —to encourage innovations in engineering; 

p —to raise the level of production skill.

p For this purpose the YCLers and young people of the Uralmash Plant in Sverdlovsk launched a campaign under the slogan "Scientific and engineering knowledge for all!”, the young workers of the Likhachev Car Plant in Moscow adopted the slogan "Learn, devise and introduce innovations!”

p Young people with special scientific and engineering training, and young scientists and specialists play a particularly significant role in the struggle for scientific and technological progress. They actively participate in designing and introducing progressive types of machines and technologies. Young scientists and specialists in the Ukraine have started a movement under the slogan "Cybernetics in overalls”, stressing the need to introduce the achievements of cybernetics into production as quickly as possible.

p Several years ago the Research Institute of Heating Devices in Moscow started a socialist competition under the slogan "Personal research subjects for all young scientists”. The young scientists made specific pledges: to master related subjects, methods and methodology of calculations, design new devices, etc.

p The young workers of Mine No. 22 in Karaganda Region, true to their slogan "No to manual work!" began to introduce means of mechanising ancillary processes. The Komsomol committee, assisted by the Party committee and the administration, compiled a map of bottle-necks in the field of ancillary mechanisation and examined how the suggestions made by workers and specialists were realised in practice. Within a month they relieved 30 miners of manual work. There are 70 headquarters and sponsoring groups for the introduction of this kind of mechanisation in mines, industrial enterprises, research institutions and higher educational establishments of Karaganda.

p Young workers, as well as young scientists and specialists, also take part in the struggle for scientific and technological progress. In the first place they raise the level of their scientific and engineering knowledge and take part in 51 mechanising and organising production processes on scientific principles.

p Much is being done to encourage the interest of various categories of young people in scientific and engineering innovations. Scientific and engineering societies in the country have a membership of more than a million young men and women, and over 950,000 young workers are members of the society of inventors and innovators. There are nearly 90,000 public design bureaus and groups of economic analysis and more than 100,000 creative teams which involve hundreds of thousands of young men and women. Reviews and exhibitions of youth engineering achievements and theoretical scientific conferences are held regularly. The first national review of youth engineering achievements involved only 2 million young men and women, compared with 7 million who took part in the review held in 1970. Nearly 7,000 young innovators were awarded USSR Economic Achievement Exhibition medals, and 15,000 won diplomas and medals of the Central Exhibition.

p The reviews of youth engineering achievements are arranged in order to develop a mass youth movement to conquer the peaks of science and engineering and to help young people acquire information on the latest achievements, to introduce into production the best works of young innovators, to imbue young people with an urge for interesting work and to raise their cultural, engineering and professional level.

p During the 3rd review, for instance, young people in Moscow developed and put into effect more than 2,500 innovation proposals outside the range of the plan.

p Young scientists at the Research Institute of Chemical Engineering designed and supervised the manufacture of equipment for two technological lines for the Uvarovo Chemical Combine. The work was completed two months ahead of schedule, and the state saved 2.3 million rubles.

p The reviews stimulated the work of public design bureaus. The main goals of public design bureaus are to offer engineering aid to inventors and innovators, investigate the urgent problems of production, patronage, introduce new subjects, and encourage the creative initiative of young 52 scientists and specialists. During the review, the public design bureaus produced some 1,000 projects.

p There are many detachments of engineering innovations, schools of young innovators, urban and district exhibitions of youth engineering achievements. Scientific and engineering conferences of young workers and specialists are held regularly.

p Much is being done to create and expand the material and technical base for scientific and engineering innovations and to organise engineering circles and clubs in research institutions, enterprises, houses of culture and residential areas.

p The current scientific and technological revolution insistently demands that young people constantly raise the level of their scientific and engineering knowledge.

p The demand for research and engineering personnel, as well as for highly qualified specialists in all branches of economy and management is growing. Their proportion in the total number of working people is rising.

p Between 1960 and 1969 the country’s population increased by 12 per cent and the number of workers and office employees in the national economy, by 41.5 per cent. During the same period, however, the number of specialists with higher education increased by 83.2 per cent, engineers, by 111.9 per cent, research workers, by 149.2 per cent, and research workers in engineering, by 202.0 per cent, an increase of more than threefold. Between 1959 and 1969 the number of unskilled workers was considerably reduced, while the number of laboratory assistants, machine-operators, controlboard operators, and adjusters of automatic machines and lathes more than doubled.

p The country’s progress in education and training of personnel is generally known. The foundation for this progress was laid during the early years of the Soviet Republic. Today there is a grand total of over 79 million students, i.e., one out of every three inhabitants in the country is studying.

p Between 1966 and 1970 more than 7 million specialists graduated from higher and secondary technical schools, including more than 1 million engineers, 270,000 economists, over 200,000 agricultural specialists, about 200,000 doctors, 53 670,000 teachers and workers of cultural and educational institutions; some 200,000 young men and women graduated from universities. The training of specialists for new and advanced fields of science and the economy has been particularly stepped up. In recent years the number of specialists trained for electronic techniques and electrical instrumentmaking has grown by 150 per cent, while the respective figure for radio-engineering is 100 per cent.

p The training of research workers has assumed a really gigantic scale. There are nearly 100,000 post-graduate students, half of whom are attending regular day courses.

p The number of young people among scientists and engineers is constantly rising. As of June 1, 1967, some 56 per cent of all scientists were under 30. As of November 15, 1966, some 32.3 per cent of specialists with higher and special secondary education were under 30, while 52 per cent were under 34.

p Even in the USSR Academy of Sciences institutions where the "intellectual entry fee" is very high, the number of research workers under 25 increased by more than 50 per cent in the period between 1965 and 1969, and the number of candidates of sciences under 30, by nearly 40 per cent.

p The scientific and technological revolution has radically changed the conception of training people in the so-called mass professions. It also changes our views as to which professions are to be regarded as mass professions.

p The first question implies that whereas formerly a man in the mass profession category was one with elementary education and experience, now he is a specialist with special secondary, secondary or higher education. In the current five-year period the ranks of mass professions will be replenished by nearly 30 million young people.

p The main point behind the second question is that scientific work is swiftly becoming a mass profession alongside those of teaching (which has more than 3.3 million in its ranks) and medicine (nearly 2.7 million). There are now more than 900,000 scientists in the country. Along with engineers and auxiliary research staff this brings the total research personnel to more than 3 million.

p The employment rates in science are 3 or 4 times higher than in other fields of the economy, and they are continuing 54 to increase. Even if the present level is to be retained, then, according to Soviet sociologists, by 1980 the number of research workers may reach 3.2 million and a total of 6.3 million if engineers and auxiliary staff are included. That will account for more than 6 per cent of the total number of people employed in the national economy.

p It is quite natural that the proportion of those employed in science and auxiliary services should grow at the expense of the other fields of the economy, i.e., the distribution of young specialists from institutes is considerably to change. What demands does this place on young people and the entire system of education?

p First of all, complete continuity in science is ensured by training more full-fledged researchers. The rapid increase in the number of those employed in science is accompanied by a decrease in the number of highly qualified scientists amongst research workers as a whole. The average age of scientists with medium and high qualifications is rather high.

p Therefore, the present rates of scientific development already demand the regular promotion of young scientists capable of assuming full responsibility for scientific progress. The scientific and technological revolution requires that young people master the versatile and dynamic process of modern education and develop, as far as possible, the ability for quick creative thinking.

p Substantial changes are taking place in the training of young workers. The traditional method of training workers consisted of an apprenticeship on the production floor, acquiring skill from experienced workers. This is being replaced by another method: training in special vocational schools where young people, besides acquiring practical skill, master the elements of theoretical knowledge. During 1965- 70 vocational schools trained over seven million qualified workers for all branches of national economy, or 50 per cent more than during the preceding period. Today there are more than 5,350 vocational schools in the country where 2.4 million young men and women are preparing to join the ranks of the working class. This is a record peak in the history of the Soviet vocational schools.

p The Directives of the 24th Party Congress envisage stepped-up training of young workers in vocational schools. 55 The task is to train at least 9 million qualified specialists during the current five-year period.

p Universal secondary education for young people is, of course, an essential requirement for technological progress. Complex mechanisation is changing the nature of the work done by the bulk of qualified workers. Muscular strength and manual skill are giving way to intellectual activity.

p The transformation of science into a direct productive force turns mathematics, physics, chemistry and, in some cases biology, into important qualification requirements for workers in many modern professions, and they have to apply their knowledge of these sciences in practical work.

p The resolution of the 24th Congress of the CPSU states that the network of vocational schools providing secondary education must be expanded. Today their number has been increased to 660, and they are being attended by nearly 200,000 young men and women.

p The experience of secondary vocational schools has proved that the general education helps the students to raise professional skill. Here are some figures: the labour productivity of graduates from the secondary vocational school No. 36 (the Ukraine) is 5.2 per cent higher than that of graduates from ordinary vocational schools, and 15 per cent higher than that of workers trained directly in enterprises. In the Znamya Kommunizma mine three out of every eight innovation proposals are made by graduates from that school. In three years of work in mine No. 4 the average level of their pay went up by 27 per cent, compared with only 7.5 per cent in the case of all other miners.

p There is no doubt that vocational schools providing secondary education will become one of the principal ways of educating young people. More than 1,240,000 people are to be admitted to them in the course of the current fiveyear period. By 1975 the number of students in secondary vocational schools will account for at least a third of the total number of students in all day vocational schools.

p The expansion of the vocational school system is accompanied by the improvement of professional training of young people directly at enterprises.

p Scientific and technological progress is also changing the work of young people in the countryside.

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p Addressing the 16th Congress of the Leninist Young Communist League, Leonid Brezhnev said: "Our agriculture is an important field of activity for the young enthusiasts of scientific and technological progress. The solution of the major tasks which the Party set before agriculture can be undertaken only by people technically educated and qualified, people who love the land and love to work on it. We note with satisfaction that the Komsomol has actively responded to the Party’s appeal to help young farming people in mastering engineering professions which are in such sharp demand in the countryside.”  [56•1 

p The efforts of rural youth in the struggle for scientific and technological progress are primarily directed at higher efficiency of agriculture and cattle-breeding on the basis of scientific achievements, accelerated mechanisation of production processes, and mastery of engineering professions by the masses of young people in the countryside.

p In 1969 the Komsomol youth of dairy farms launched an all-Union competition for higher production efficiency. Young people actively participate in the mechanisation of dairy farms and introduction of progressive methods of work in stock-breeding, help in the construction of premises for cattle, and come up with interesting proposals. On the eve of Lenin’s centenary (April 1970), for instance, the YCLers and young people of the Lipetsk Region launched a twoyear campaign for the introduction of machine-milking. After the campaign had been successfully completed, they started to mechanise other difficult processes. Their initiative has been widely supported elsewhere.

p Much attention is being paid to the training of rural youth in engineering professions. Many districts have set up special headquarters and committees which study the needs of collective and state farms in mass professions jointly with argicultural and other interested organisations and departments, draw up training plans for young people, and supervise the universal technical education of young men and women. Many regions and republics announced competitions between Komsomol organisations in the technical training of rural youth, with prizes for the winners.

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p In 1970 more than 950,000 village young people mastered technical professions, and thousands upon thousands of them are working as tractor and lorry drivers. Last year the number of machine-operators in collective and state farms went up by 86,000 against a rise of 26,000 in 1969. More than half a million machine-operators graduated to higherclass categories.

p Many Komsomol organisations attract young women to technical professions, form women tractor teams, and help improving the working and living conditions for women machine-operators. In 1970 these courses of technical knowledge were attended by over 60,000 women—four times more than in 1969. The number of young women attending rural vocational schools increased from 4 per cent in 1966 to 9 per cent in 1970.

p Several years ago the Komsomol organisations of Uzbekistan and the other cotton-growing republics undertook to promote the introduction of complex mechanisation in cotton plantations. They are doing a great deal to train young people in rural areas as machine-operators. In Uzbekistan, for instance, nearly 100,000 young men and women have qualified as machine-operators in the course of the past five years. In 1961 there were only 300 fullymechanised Komsomol-youth collectives working in the cotton fields; now there are more than 4,000.

Thus, the scientific and technological revolution augments the wonderful advantages socialism has brought to the labour process and thanks to which more and more young people are beginning to see the principal goal of life and understand the principal joy of free creative labour. Work is becoming more interesting and offering greater opportunities for creative talents. Simultaneously, it is putting greater demands on the worker, and his knowledge and skill. The expenses involved in educating, training and raising the skill of workers are paid in full by the socialist state.