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p Developments have demonstrated that socialism with its planned economy gives the broadest scope for all-round scientific and technological progress in the interests of society. Today the Soviet Union and other socialist countries are working on the major problem of combining the achievements of the scientific and technological revolution with the advantages of the socialist economic system. Scientific and technological competition is one of the main areas of the class struggle between socialism and capitalism.

p Under these conditions economic efficacy and scientific and technological advancement have become a cardinal sphere of the ideological struggle. In one way or another most of the present anti-communist theories on the economy of socialism touch on these problems. Almost all the bourgeois works on these subjects have some features in common. One of these features is their recognition, to one extent 54 or another, of the socialist economy’s achievements. The noted French bourgeois scholar Francois Perroux has declared that today the Western mind “has been stunned by this elementary fact: capitalism has a competitor”.^^11^^ Another feature common to the anti-communist theories on the problems of efficiency and scientific and technological progress in the socialist countries is the striving of their authors to belittle the achievements of the socialist countries in this sphere and misrepresent the roots and social content of these achievements.

p To this day Warren Nutter, Naum Jasny, Harry Schwarts and other American bourgeois economists assert that because the socialist system is inconsistent with capitalism’s individualistic and egoistic stimuli of economic progress it will inevitably collapse.^^12^^ Some of them assert that socialism hinders the rational management of production, lowers labour productivity and slows down the rates of technological advance.

p The untenability of these assertions becomes obvious when they are compared with the facts.

Dynamics of the Growth of Labour Productivity
in Soviet’Industry in the Period 1917-1974
(1913==100)^^13^^

Year Index Year Index Year Index Year Index 1917 68 1931 159 1949 517 1962 1,261 1918 42 1932 163 1950 580 1963 1,324 1920 31 1933 177 1951 635 1964 1,377 1921 36 1934 196 1952 681 1965 1 446 1922 51 1935 222 1953 722 1966 1,518 1923 63 1936 270 1954 767 1967 1,624 1924 64 1937 318 1955 837 1968 1,705 1925 85 1938 353 1956 900 1969 1,790 1926 100 1939 412 1957 950 1970 1,915 1927 107 1940 422 1958 1,000 1971 2,035 1928 120 1946 351 1959 1,090 1972 2,140 1929 135 1947 397 1960 1,140 1973 2,292 1930 148 1948 457 1961 1,190 1974 2,404 55

p For the rate of growth of labour productivity the Soviet Union is well ahead of the industrialised capitalist nations. In the course of 50 years (1917-1967) the annual labour productivity growth rate averaged 5.3 per cent in the USSR, as compared with 2.3 per cent in the USA, 1.2 per cent in Britain and 2 per cent in France.^^14^^ This has enabled the USSR to reach the labour productivity level of Britain and France and draw close to the US level.

p Another indicator is the growth of industrial output, the national income and the fixed assets of the CMEA countries. During the 25 years from 1949 to 1973, their industrial output grew more than 12-fold, while in the industrialised capitalist states it increased only 4-fold. Since 1950 the national income of the CMEA nations has increased by nearly 470 per cent, which is approximately double the same indicator in the industrialised capitalist states.

p In this situation many bourgeois scholars can no longer entirely deny the achievements of the socialist countries in enhancing the efficiency of their economy. The present phase of the scientific and technological competition makes it imperative for the ruling circles of the USA and other capitalist states to have more objective information on economic development in the socialist world.

p In the latter half of the 1960s the Joint Economic Committee of the US Congress undertook a series of studies of the Soviet economy. The Committee’s experts published several reports in 1966 and in subsequent years. Some of these reports contained a fairly profound analysis of the indicators of industrial, scientific and technological development in the USSR. In analysing the dynamics of labour productivity, one of these experts, James H. Noren, had to note: “Thus the high rate of growth observed in Soviet industry can be explained, in large part, by the continued commitment of large doses of economic resources—capital investment and labour.”^^15^^

p Another widespread allegation of anti-communist propaganda is that the socialist countries had to pay a 56 prohibitive price for every economic achievement. Assertions of this kind are a fixed idea of the vast literature devoted to the history of socio-economic development in the Soviet Union and other socialist countries. For instance, interest in problems of the transitional period in the history of the socialist countries has grown in recent years in a number of capitalist states. This is mirrored by the many publications on this period in the Soviet Union, the new economic policy, the first socialist reforms, industrialisation and collectivisation, and the cultural revolution in the USSR. The following conclusion may be drawn from an analysis of the articles, reviews, brochures and monographs dealing with these topics, namely that every effort is being made to denigrate the modern achievements of the socialist economy and to give the impression that a huge price had been paid for these achievements, which the bourgeois authors nonetheless acknowledge.

p Moreover, efforts are being made to pick out points of difference between the works written by Soviet authors in the period of transition and present-day Soviet economic science and to prove that individual concepts of the 1920s clash with the present policy of the CPSU and the international communist movement. Very indicative in this context are the pronouncements on the works of Y. Preobrazhensky, a noted Russian economist of the 1920s. In the introduction to Preobrazhensky’s New Economic Policy published in the West Ernest Mandel calls it one of the outstanding works of Soviet economic thought.^^16^^ This opinion is shared by Guy Caire in a review carried by the journal Revue economique.^^17^^

p What do the Sovietologists find attractive in Preobrazhensky’s works? They laud the “law of primary socialist accumulation” to which Preobrazhensky had given much of his attention. The substance of this “law” was quite thoroughly exposed by the Communist Party in the 1920s. By equating the peasant economy to the colonial economy Preobrazhensky sought to undermine socialist 57 industrialisation, which was founded on economic co-operation between the proletariat and the peasants.

p By making much of Preobrazhensky’s ideas the anticommunists are trying to scare away from the Communists the innumerable middle urban and rural strata, who, on account of their interests and domination by monopoly capital, objectively remain interested in unity with the proletariat. This laudation of the “law of primary accumulation of capital” pursues the obvious aim of belittling the significance of the Soviet experience of socialist construction in the eyes of large segments of the people in the developing countries.

p One of the most common ways in which the anti- communists falsify socialism’s economic achievements is the manipulation of factors that have nothing to do with the nature of the socialist system. For instance, they depict industrialisation in the USSR as an ordinary development in a backward country entering a certain phase of its evolution. This development, they assert, does not differ from capitalist industrialisation. Characteristic in this respect is an essay by the British anti-communist E. H. Carr in a volume entitled Socialism, Capitalism and Economic Growth. “The conclusion I should like to draw,” he writes, “is that Soviet industrialisation is neither a unique phenomenon, nor a deviation from an established and accepted model, but an important stage in a process of development which began two centuries ago.”^^18^^

p True, some authors of this hue have to admit that the rate of industrialisation is beneficially influenced by such specifics of the socialist economic system as public ownership of the means of production and socialist planning. At the same time they seek to belittle these factors. One of them, Henri Chambre, in his book The Soviet Union and Economic Development endeavours to substantiate the thesis that collective ownership acted as a certain stimulant only at the first stage of the Soviet Union’s development by virtue of its economic weakness and backwardness at that stage. 58 Today, he contends, the collectivist relations of production and institutions conforming to them have become a negative factor slowing down and even obstructing economic advancement.

p Considerable significance is acquired today by the anticommunist speculations on the new phenomena linked with the scientific and technological revolution that has been unfolding since the 1950s.

p The anti-communists give a false picture of the social content and effects of the scientific and technological revolution in the capitalist states. But they are only labouring in vain in trying to portray scientific and technological progress as an instrument of the “self-abolition” of capitalist society’s antagonistic contradictions. Life is bearing out Lenin’s conclusion that under capitalism a conscious application of science only intensifies “its slavery in the interests of dirty capitalist greed”.^^19^^

p However, bourgeois theorists describe state-monopoly capitalism as an “optimum” economic system. The theoretical basis for this attitude is their falsification of the very concept of “optimum”. They usually interpret “economic optimum” as meaning the fullest utilisation of limited resources for the “maximum usefulness”. Although this “deideologised” interpretation of the concept reflects some common elements inherent in production at any of its historical phases, it is formally abstract. It circumvents the basic question of society’s socio-economic structure, which is what determines the social content of the term “optimum” and the social conditions for its realisation.

p True optimal development presupposes not only the choice of methods for the attainment of the aims of production but also the choice of these aims, which are dominated by the relations of production. From this point of view, socialism is the only system that creates the social conditions for the most efficient utilisation of resources in the interests of society. It may be said that socialism ensures the economic optimum. As a problem of a conscious choice of alternatives 59 in economic development on a national scale in the interests of the whole of society, the optimum, as is noted by the Soviet economist Y. Olsevich, “can be ensured only under socialism, on the basis of public ownership of the means of production”.^^20^^

p Socialism is the only society that frees science of bourgeois fetters and creates colossal opportunities for scientific progress in the interests of society as a whole. As is noted in the Programme of the CPSU, with the enforcement of a series of measures in the Soviet Union “science will itself in full measure become a direct productive force”.^^21^^ The further enhancement of the role played by science and the acceleration of scientific and technological progress are one of the central aims of the programmes of socio-economic development approved by the 24th Congress of the CPSU and by the congresses of the Communist parties of other socialist countries.

p Also an extremely significant aspect of the bourgeois interpretation of the optimum is that it is static. As a rule, their definition excludes the need for the most efficient utilisation of resources that are being developed for attaining new goals. It is symptomatic that many anti-communist theorists use the Soviet Union’s lag behind the USA in one field or another as proof of their contention that no economic optimum exists or is even possible in the socialist economy. For instance, Stanley H. Cohn, an expert of the US Congress, tries to prove that there is no optimisation of social production in the Soviet Union (he asserts that decline and stagnation prevail in the Soviet economy) by comparing the GNP of the USSR and the USA. However, the data on the Soviet Union’s lag behind the USA in the total volume of production or some other similar data have no bearing on the ability of one social system or another of achieving economic optimisation. These data can characterise, though only partially, the efficiency of production within a certain span of time. At each phase this efficiency depends not only on the socio-economic system but also on many historical and 60 international factors, including the starting level of development, the duration of wars, the devastation wrought by them, natural factors, and so on.

p The objective logic of the economic development of the Soviet Union and other socialist countries increasingly lays bare the untenability of the bourgeois economists’ static approach to problems of the economic optimum. Lately, this has led to a trend, typical particularly of the neo-classical school, toward bringing dynamics into the category of the optimum. A case in point is the “latest” concept elaborated by the American economist Abram Bergson in his Planning and Productivity under Soviet Socialism?^^3^^’ Taking into account the vulnerability of the static approach to the socialist economy, he endeavours to work out a method of assessing the efficiency of the growing socialist economy that would be acceptable to bourgeois political economy. For this purpose he uses the bourgeois “structural” theories of economic development, including the theory of stages of economic growth. But even in their “dynamic” form the bourgeois theories ignore social factors. With references to “dynamic efficiency” he tries, in effect, to by-pass the question of socialism’s historically progressive character as a socio-economic system. This progressive character is seen in the fact that socialism sets and successfully achieves the aims of attaining the world’s highest level of efficiency and the planned development of the national economy.

p The anti-communists argue that the socialist planned economy, centralised planning and management of the economy and the determining role of the socialist state in economic development are incompatible with economic rationality and true humanism and democracy. The market, i.e., the capitalist economy, they claim, creates the conditions for initiative in the interests of all members of society.

p Most of the bourgeois economists are no longer arguing that the plan and the market are incompatible. Many proponents of the “convergence” theory (Raymond Aron, Pitirim A. Sorokin and John K. Galbraith, to name a few) 61 regard state-monopoly regulation in the imperialist states as the beginning of economic planning. “Elements of planning are included in the market economy of the Western industrialised states,” declares one of these proponents.^^23^^ “Planning and socialism are not one and the same thing,” says another.

p As regards the economic development of the socialist countries this theory is based on the deliberately false premise that the basic principles of socialist planning have not justified themselves and should therefore be abandoned. They refer here to centralised planning of the entire economy, the mandatory nature of plans, and to the fact that the principles of socialist planning are identified with administrative methods of economic management.

p Characteristic in this respect is the support given by the anti-communists in West Germany and other capitalist countries to the revisionist “champions of the market economy” who had suffered a fiasco in Czechoslovakia.^^24^^

p Essentially, the attacks on centralised planning and management of the economy and the laudation of the market as a regulator of production raise the question of the stimuli of economic progress under socialism. Are they the result of a mutual antagonism between branches of the economy and between individuals (which under market regulation is called competition) or are they the result of their co-operation?

p Under socialism appropriation is a process that has from the very beginning been consciously given a social character. This has been clearly defined in the works of the classics of Marxism-Leninism, for whom socialist ownership in principle signified appropriation in the interests of the whole of society.

p Planned administration of society in the interests of the working people forms the substance of socialism. Contrary to this, the mechanism of competition, demanded by the revisionists, would undermine the homogeneity of socialist ownership and the power of the working class which rests on that ownership (this was demonstrated by the inglorious 62 counter-revolutionary theories of the revisionist economists in Czechoslovakia).

p The dogged efforts of the anti-communists of all hues to portray the socialist principle of planning as an attempt by the state to centralise and regulate all aspects of life cannot find tangible justification. Socialism is a highly organised, dynamic system with close interaction and interdependence between the planned regulation on the scale of the whole of society and the initiative of individual enterprises, districts and regions. Centralised state management and planning in the major fields of social development are organically linked with the responsibility borne by enterprises and local bodies, which plan their own work. This system is not merely economically more efficient than the capitalist market mechanism, competition and anarchy of production. It is also much more democratic, for it combines the interests of the working class and all other working people in an integral system of socialist social relations.

p During the building of a developed socialist society and the foundations of communism under conditions of intensive expanded reproduction, the basic principles of management and planning of the socialist economy must receive priority development as compared with the principles that were applied during the building of socialism and fundamentally extensive expanded reproduction. This includes the further consistent development of commodity-money relations, which, despite all the attempts by the anti-communists to interpret them in their own way, are one of the main components of the socialist economy. Of decisive significance is the fact that the basic principles of planning and managing the socialist economy remain immutable.

p Had the principle of universal regulation, which suppresses all initiative, actually been applied in the socialist economy and had this been really intrinsic to that economy, what motivated the free development of mass initiative that commenced during the very first days of socialism’s existence in the Soviet Union? In each new period of development 63 the creative initiative of the working people manifested itself as a profoundly democratic movement. It grew in accordance with the tasks facing society and yielded increasing economic benefits.

p For instance, the number of production rationalisation suggestions increased from 591,000 in 1940 to 4,733,000 in 1972. The saving from their utilisation grew from 90 million rubles in 1940 to 3,410 million in 1972.^^25^^ Similar processes are to be observed in other socialist countries.

p There is only one explanation for all this—a spirit of genuine emulation on a mass scale emerges only on the basis of socialist ownership, with help from centralised management and planning, in an atmosphere of comradely cooperation and mutual assistance. This is one of the cardinal advantages of socialism, which shows its superiority over the capitalist principle of competition and monopoly domination, based on massive plunder of social wealth, on the victory of one rival group over another. The question should therefore be not of the abolition of state management and planning, whose importance increases with the growth of the socialisation of labour in all spheres of social production, but of the enlistment of all working people into the administration of the state and the economy.

p Bourgeois economists, who can no longer deny the expediency of centralised economic planning, now assert that in view of the present enormous scale of planned production there cannot be democracy and creative activity by the working people anywhere in the world. Centralism and democracy, they claim, are incompatible. John K. Galbraith said that “a tendency threatening that the huge bureaucratic economic machine ... would occupy the dominant position in society was growing increasingly pronounced in all industrialised nations”.^^26^^

p State-monopoly centralism is thus identified with socialist democratic centralism. The policies of the Communist and Workers’ parties of the socialist states, including their economic policy, are permeated with the striving to do as 64 much as possible for the welfare of the people, in the interests of the working class and all other working people, and together with them discuss all undertakings, adopt and carry out decisions. This was clearly expressed in the documents of the 24th Congress of the CPSU and of the congresses of the Communist parties of other socialist countries. The centralism of the socialist state is therefore just as democratic as the creative initiative of the people in production or in their residential district. Their participation in the charting of state decisions is a tested principle of socialist centralism. The recommendations made by the people during nationwide discussions and the commitments that were made during the preparations for the 24th Congress of the CPSU eloquently exemplify the democratic character of socialist centralism, which is a principle of political life in other socialist countries as well. In the German Democratic Republic, for instance, seven million people took part in discussing a draft code of labour laws.

p Thus, socialist society takes shape and the socialist economy develops with the active participation of millions of people. Socialist society and economy are improving because the working class and all other working people are growing more skilful in the art of economic management and state administration.

p One of the key conditions for this is the growth of the role played by the Party of the working class, which is the highest form of its organisation in the building of socialism and communism. The role of the working class in the development of socialist society and the significance of its initiative and conscious, purposeful activity as the champion of social progress are enhanced in proportion to the growth of its political activity, knowledge, ability to carry out economic and technical tasks, and cultural level. The art of leadership by the Communist Party consists in training the working class to carry out new functions and tasks in the building of communism.

65

p The Communist Party concentrates its attention on providing political leadership to economic processes, for “without a correct political approach to the matter the given class will be unable to stay on top, and consequently, will be incapable of solving its production problem either”.^^27^^

p By demanding the Communist Party’s removal from economic management the revisionists are encroaching on the command heights of socialism, for economy is the main area of the struggle for socialism. It creates the material conditions for progress in all spheres of social life. The experience of socialist construction has proved time and again that social progress depends largely on the ability of the Communist Party to give a politically correct orientation to economic development, constructively implement the leading role of the working class and utilise the creative powers of the working people.

p An objective law of the building of a developed socialist society is therefore not the abolition, as is preached by the revisionists, but the growth of the guiding, leading role of the Communist Party in the economy, for the larger the scale of socialist construction and the more complex the tasks it entails, the greater becomes the role and responsibility of the Communist Party.

p In its analysis of the present phase of development, the 24th Congress of the CPSU presented a scientific solution to the main problems of the economic policy and socio- political and cultural development of Soviet society. Proceeding from the specifics of the present phase of communist construction, the Congress set forth the fundamental objectives of economic development for 1971-1975 and for a longer term.

p The main goal of the CPSU’s economic policy is to achieve a substantial rise of the people’s living standards. This is what evokes the greatest hostility of the anti-communists. While misrepresenting the humane and democratic character of the programme adopted by the 24th Congress, they 66 have to take into consideration the present-day specifics of the struggle between the two social systems.

p In the ideological attacks of the reactionaries against socialism no little importance is acquired by outwardly objective theories, whose authors reluctantly acknowledge some of the socio-economic achievements of the socialist countries but seek to distort the content of these achievements. Moreover, they vociferously declare that the purpose of their criticism is to “protect humanism”.

p The aim pursued by these more subtle falsifiers of the documents and decisions of the 24th CPSU Congress may be clearly seen in analysing the pronouncements of the participants in a “round-table discussion” in Turin on the subject “Where is the USSR of the 1970s heading?”. Organised after the 24th Congress of the CPSU, it was attended by prominent Western anti-communists and Sovietologists. Many of them had to acknowledge “the improved situation in the USSR” and the positive character of some of the Congress decisions. In the words of Richard Lowenthal, the Congress adopted a very significant decision—to improve the condition of the Soviet consumer. But Lowenthal, as the other anti-communists, made this admission only in order to misrepresent entirely the reasons underlying the decisions passed at the Congress.^^28^^

p While acknowledging the turn in favour of the consumer, Arrigo Levi, who also attended the “round-table discussion”, asserted that the Soviet Union did not have the potential to accelerate the output of consumer goods.^^29^^ His “computations” led to the absurd conclusion that under the ninth five-year plan no investments would be made in the services industry. Further, he “discovered” that the Congress had introduced a more rigid wage policy, abandoned the economic reform and renounced economic incentives.

p In dealing with the socio-economic programme of the 24th CPSU Congress, there has been a distribution of roles among representatives of various schools of anti-communism. The neo-liberals base their criticism on the traditional 67 theories about the “organic mismanagement” that is allegedly inherent in the socialist economy. The positive programme of the Congress is characterised as “wishful thinking” and the “sheerest Utopia”. In the distorting mirror of the anti-communists even the task of ensuring an increment in social production through a higher level of labour productivity is characterised as a “broad offensive against the Soviet working class.”^^29^^

p The “convergence” theory advocates hold that the Soviet Union owes its recent economic successes to the “ transplantation” of some elements of the Western economy to socialism and that the task is to move further in that direction.

p The “Left” revisionists likewise attack the programme adopted at the 24th CPSU Congress. While the Right opportunists speak of what they call the meagre consumption in the Soviet Union, the “Left” revisionists harp on the “bourgeoisification” of Soviet society. The Maoists try to justify Peking’s anti-popular policies by proclaiming poverty as a factor that automatically determines man’s lofty morals. They are making futile attempts to portray concern for people, condemning the rise of the living standard and the flourishing of culture and science as an indication of bourgeois degeneration.

p The ideals of scientific communism, reflected and enlarged on in the decisions of the 24th CPSU Congress, are as far removed from the consumption cult propounded by the bourgeois ideologists and the Right opportunists as from the hypocritical extolling of poverty by the “Left” revisionists, who deny the humanism of Marxism-Leninism. The “ barrack socialism” of the Maoists and the “humane” or “ democratic” socialism of the Right opportunists ultimately boil down to betrayal of the interests of the working people.

p The duplicity and spuriousness of all these arguments of the anti-communists are strikingly brought to light when they are compared with the facts.

p A highly-developed agriculture is an inalienable part of communism’s material and technical basis and an 68 indispensable condition for a rapid rise of the living standard. The anti-communists have done much to falsify the actual situation in Soviet agriculture. Contrary to their assertions about a crisis and a decline, Soviet agriculture is surmounting difficulties and developing successfully. This is demonstrated by the data on the increase in the output of grain: from an annual average of 121,500,000 tons in 1956-1960 to 130,300,000 tons in 1961-1965 and to 167,500,000 tons in 1966-1970; and to 190,600,000 in 1971-1975^^30^^.

p The growth of production and efficiency created a dependable foundation for the fulfilment of the broad social programme during the period of the ninth five-year plan. This programme provided for a system of measures to improve the condition of all strata of the population; a more rational use of labour resources and the further improvement of working conditions; an accelerated growth of the people’s incomes and an improvement of the distribution of these incomes, of the wage system and of economic incentives; a substantial increase of the funds allocated for the education of the rising generation, for assistance to large families and for improving the working conditions and life of women; a further growth of the people’s cultural and educational level and the promotion of culture and science; a considerable levelling up of the rural and urban living standards; a broader development of the health services and measures to safeguard the health of Soviet people.^^31^^

p The growth of incomes is a key element of the rise of the living standard. In 1974, the per capita real incomes in the Soviet Union constituted 104.2 per cent, as compared to 1973.

p Parallel with the rise in wage incomes the Soviet Communist Party has set the task of substantially increasing the social consumption funds. The allowances and benefits received by the population have increased from 4,600 million to 73,000 million rubles between 1940 and 1972, while the per capita allowances and benefits increased from 24 to 295 rubles annually during the same period.^^32^^

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p The attainment of these targets involves a considerable acceleration of the development of the services industry. In terms of the entire gainfully employed population, the number of people employed in this industry has risen from 5 per cent in 1913 to 22.6 per cent in recent years, which totals over 25 million. Over one-third of the investments and roughly 40-45 per cent of the consumption funds are directed into the services industry. The further expansion of this industry will intensify its active influence on extended reproduction and on all aspects of social life. The growth of the living standard and cultural level of the people and the further democratisation of political and social life in the socialist countries are debunking the anticommunist fabrications as regards the theory and practice of building the new society.

The humane essence of socialism is today becoming clear to a growing number of people. The Communists are striving to ensure the rise of the living standard, the further humanisation of social relations and, on that basis, the all-round development of the individual, the enrichment of his interests and the broadening of his creative activity. Communism stands for the free and all-round development of the individual as the condition for the free development of all the members of society.