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p The attacks on existing socialism are motivated mainly by the fact that by its very existence, by its way of life the new society is passing the final stern sentence on nihilistic ideas and serves as a living refutation of their primary principles and ideological and methodological guidelines. “Already today socialism exercises a tremendous influence on the thinking and sentiment of hundreds of millions of people all over the world. It assures working people freedom, truly democratic rights, well-being, the broadest possible access to knowledge, and a firm sense of security. It brings peace, respect for the sovereignty of all countries and equal interstate co-operation, and is a pillar of support to peoples fighting for their freedom and independence. And the immediate future is sure to provide 204 new evidence of socialism’s boundless possibilities, of its historical superiority over capitalism.”.  [204•* 

p That explains nihilistic criticism’s all-out effort to distort the essence of the great historic changes being put into effect by the socialist revolution, to disparage and belittle their significance, to distort the character of the socialist way of life as a qualitatively new phenomenon in man’s long and suffering-studded history. Small wonder that it mentions only in passing, as something of minor importance, the fact that in socialist society the exploiters have been expropriated, power has passed into the hands of the proletariat and all other working people, a new type of relations of production has been evolved, the antithesis between town and country and between labour by brain and by hand has been eradicated and a new historic community has emerged—namely, the Soviet people, a community founded on relations of friendly co-operation, unbounded trust and concord among all classes and nations.

p These are the socio-economic and political changes that have led to the creation of the qualitatively new organisation of society. In that society man has broken once and for all with his former condition of a “private person" and become an equal member of various forms of true collectivism, of a free association of people controlling their social being, their own emancipated existence, and doing so for the purpose of their unhampered and limitless selfdevelopment. Man’s destiny is no longer determined by the accident of class origin and class position, or by the whims of the market. From a faceless, mediated instrument of social progress man is becoming the highest aim of social progress. His dignity and destiny are today determined solely by his talents, labour and social activity that is consonant with social progress and whose intensity and purposefulness know no equal in the history of mankind, for it is based on cognised objective laws of history.

p In socialist society production and state discipline, administrative, legal and moral guidelines and the entire mechanism of regulating the activity of people, which 205 nihilism attacks, are the social force guarding the interests of society and the individual. Social progress is being liberated once and for all from antagonistic forms. People realise in advance the need for maturing social changes, desire these changes, and before necessity overtakes them they change the conditions of their life in keeping with cognised laws of social development. It is becoming possible to convert social progress into progress for man, because in that society there no longer are class forces opposing imminent changes.

p By assuring progress on the basis of social unity, of concordant free development of people, socialism has refuted anti-communism’s favourite dogma that there is everlasting antagonism between man and the masses, between the individual and society, that they are mutually alienated, that evil is inevitable. By liberating labour from exploitation and collectively organising it socialism destroys the economic roots of labour alienation. The very process of labour and its product cease to be alien, to be torn away from the working people.

p In socialist society the individual is no longer compelled to materialise, to dehumanise his relations with other people. He does not regard these relations as objects and means for functional use. He is not doomed to confrontation with himself, to using his energy and talents as the means of attaining unprincipled success (market orientation of the individual). He is assured the integrity of his consciousness on a foundation immeasurably more solid than ever before, and develops his activity as a responsible subject of history.

p When in spite of all these facts nihilistic criticism counterposes an abstract model of socialism generally to socialist reality it only lays bare its predisposition for sophistry. This operation nullifies all the specific features of the historic process of socialist construction, that began mainly in medium- and even underdeveloped countries—the peasant character of these countries, the predomination in them of a landowner-bureaucratic organisation of labour and society, political despotism, the predominance of patriarchal relations and the cultural backwardness. The bitter struggle between the two world systems and much else 206 are obscured. Socialism’s social practice is seen only as static. The balance between what has been and what remains to be achieved, and between prospects and problems yet unresolved is completely distorted. Far-fetched yardsticks are applied to historically shaped socialist society in order to belittle and disparage its actual historic achievements.

p Nihilistic criticism cannot or, rather, does not wish to take into account the fact that socialist society only gradually begins to develop on its own foundation, to move from the early to the mature stage of its self-development. Naturally, socialism’s advantages could not show themselves in their full stature at the initial phase. For example, in industry there was still an excessive division of labour and the percentage of arduous, non-mechanised labour was still high. The volume of extensive forms of economic growth was considerable. Factors were still in operation that hindered the consistent application of the principle of “from each according to his abilities, to each according to his work”, and this prevented the elimination of all possibility of receiving unearned incomes (as a consequence of the technical and economic advantages of some types of economies, branches of industry and individual enterprises, the dissimilar fertility of the soil, the benefits from the territorial distribution of industries, the fluctuations of market prices, and in some socialist countries the relatively long preservation of elements of private enterprise). The rapid changes in the relations of production were only gradually—and sometimes much too slowly—realised in the development of the productive forces. There were still inadequate material conditions for removing the contradiction between the advanced relations of socialist ownership and the backward organisational and technical labour relations at factory level. Elements of formal socialisation of social production and social labour were still in evidence.

p Furthermore, it is quite obvious that the separate functioning of mental and physical activity as isolated spheres of the application of human energy could not cease at once. Society put an end to their former antithesis in a revolutionary manner and did much to surmount the given isolation. But at socialism’s early phases the distance between 207 labour by brain and by hand was still much too great, as indeed was the distance between administrative and executive activity. To some extent labour still promoted nothing more than the one-sided development of the individual. Labour morality could not firmly assert itself, and the sense of being the master, social activity and relations of co-operation and mutual assistance did not have full scope for development. There were only limited resources for involving the working people in controlling production and extra-production activity on a broad scale.

p On the other hand, the planned organisation of social production was initially directed not so much towards ensuring the prosperity and free development of the members of society as towards the satisfaction of immediate needs: at that phase socialism was, as a rule, unable to balance the expansion of production and consumption. This was due to the prolonged backwardness of agriculture, the relatively low development level of the services industry, and the considerable difference in the living standards of the various social groups. The harmonious combination of personal, collective and social interests was still a difficult task.

p It must be specially emphasised that at socialism’s early phase the contradictions in society were settled chiefly by political means. With the highly centralised economic management was linked the predominance of extra-moral, political and administrative methods of regulating people’s behaviour and of influencing social and economic processes. The generation of people educated in an atmosphere of proprietorship and individualism was still numerous, and this made the problem of surmounting survivals of this atmosphere in people’s minds extremely acute. Since at that phase the socialist way of life could not yet be finally established, the orientation on patriarchal practices, traditions and customs remained influential. Survivals were particularly strong in everyday life, which is the most conservative sphere. In addition, there still were anti-socialist forces: the main body of conflicts sprang from the clash of various types of consciousness and of hostile, antagonistic interests and aims.

p Society’s entire make-up changes, mainly qualitatively, at the phase of mature socialism. Rapid and many-sided 208 progress is made towards the attainment of a high level of socialisation of industry and labour. The conditions are created for the implementation of the specifically socialist principle of distribution and all advantages in this area of relations are almost entirely abolished. Social and property distinctions between people are no longer (or almost no longer) the outcome of an unequal relation to social ownership of the means of production. On this level inequality is due only to the inequality of direct labour relations and the division of labour stemming from the specific features, character, place and function of its various forms and from the heterogeneity of organisational and managerial relations.

p There is a diminishing demand for a “partial”, narrowspecialised person, and rather the conditions are created for man’s versatile and harmonious development, including the improvement of his professional skills. Arduous manual labour is supplanted on a huge scale by automation and comprehensive mechanisation. The sphere of creativity in industry is enlarged. The supply of electric power per worker increases and labour acquires a growing intellectual content. The number of purely mechanical functions diminishes.

p Socialist democracy, including production democracy, develops on an increasingly more solid foundation. The working people take an immeasurably more active and effective part in industrial management. This refers to workers’ participation in the movement for improvements in production, in the drawing up of plans, in the discussion of the results of the emulation movement, in the work of scientific and technical societies, in trade union control of the work of the managerial apparatus, in various bureaus set up and operating on a voluntary basis, in foremen’s and young specialists’ councils, and so forth. This makes the working people increasingly aware of themselves as co-owners and co-managers of the means of production, gives them a larger moral incentive for work, fosters relations of comradely co-operation, mutual assistance and collectivism, and compensates for the certain objective narrowness of technical creativity in industry with social forms of initiatives and creativity.

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p The conditions of life are further improved in a mature socialist society. The unity of social, collective and personal interests acquires flexibility, stability and strength.

p Under mature socialism the drive for efficiency is the strategic orientation and leading tendency in industry. Not only resources as a whole, but also the portion used by society to promote the people’s welfare and for carrying out a large spectrum of social tasks, increase substantially. Further, it must be noted that whereas the capitalist world is unable to cope with serious economic difficulties, including difficulties caused by the energy crisis, socialism, which rejects the Utopian doctrines of zero growth, industrial asceticism, the cult of compulsory saving and return to the “blissful Middle Ages”, is in the main successfully resolving the problem of adequately supplying the economy with key power and raw material resources.

p The attainment of social homogeneity is the leading trend of the changes in the social and class structure of a developed socialist society. The cultural, technical and educational level of the workers is rising swiftly.

p The eradication of the existing distinctions between town and country is accompanied by the drawing together of the working class and the peasantry. This is being achieved through the industrialisation of agriculture, changes in the character of remuneration for the work of collective farmers, and raising the level of material security and education, and promoting the standard of living. For the type of labour, the educational level, consumer activity and material security workers by brain are drawing close to the working class. The processes leading to the shaping of an integral socialist way of life (despite the distinction’s that have still to be surmounted) are moving in the same direction.

The new way of life spells out a dynamic unity of conditions and modes of human activity typical of socialism. It characterises the most essential features of people’s labour, association, behaviour, ideology and world outlook. It signifies working, collectivist and truly democratic mode of the existence of man, social groups and society as a whole. It signifies culture that turns man from a submissive cog, a grain of sand carried by social storms, into a creative 210 subject of the historical process. The socialist way of life is based on social (not private) property, on a planned (not market, chaotic) economy and scientific management of social processes, on a unifying, collectivist (not dividing, individualist) attitude of people to society and each other, on respect (not indifference) for the values produced by labour, on the cultivation of respect for the dignity of the working man, on patriotism and the promotion of progressive national traditions and socialist internationalism (not racialism, chauvinism, nationalism, cosmopolitism), on the adoption and enrichment of mankind’s progressive cultural values (not a parasitical, consumer attitude to them as required by mass culture, and not their eradication as required by counter-culture), on iron-clad social guarantees of freedom, equality, well-being and humanism, on the highest satisfaction with one’s life and work which emanates from the revolutionary-critical orientation of the consciousness (not from the complacency of utilitarianpractical adaptation) and from participation in the work of reshaping the world.