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p The attempts to idealise the results of the revolution, the building of socialism and its development at the present phase, and the depiction of all these difficult and highly complex processes as an undeviating, evolutionary and painless advance towards the ideals of communism are flatly rejected by Marxism-Leninism as scientifically untenable and politically harmful. Actually these were contradictory processes that sometimes developed unevenly, by spurts and zigzags. There were slips in them, disharmony between the rates of negating age-old forms of social life, social order and the discipline of the stick and hunger, and the birth of new forms of social organisation, of conscious discipline and rule by the people. There were imbalances in the shaping of various aspects of the socialist way of life. Development ran into many extremely difficult problems—from the need to divert energy for defence against 211 encroachments by international imperialism to lack of knowhow of building socialism. The course, rate, depth, soundness and cost of these processes were powerfully influenced by the degradation of morals prior to the revolution, by the fact that the minds of millions of people were infected by proprietary psychology, consumer ideas or nationalism.

p By and large, at all the phases of its development, including the mature phase, socialism has not yet entirely freed itself from the economic and moral traditions, habits, traces and birthmarks of capitalism. This is due mainly to the historically limited development level of the productive forces and the extent of the actual socialisation of production and labour.

p The existence of commodity-money relations generates the need for controlling the measure of labour and the measure of consumption, for providing the means for individual existence only in exchange for participation (in accordance with legalised norms) in specialised forms of activity, chiefly, of course, in production. From this stems the specifically socialist principle of distribution according to the quantity and quality of work, principally through various wage systems.

p This principle ushers in the establishment of socialist equality. On the economic level its formula reads: every member of society must receive as much material goods as he gives society, minus the share compensating for the expended means of production, and used to expand production, set up reserve funds and maintain the social consumption funds. This principle makes it possible to combine social, collective and personal interests. It is a forced instrument that allows avoiding stagnation and destruction in industry, enlisting the masses into the building of socialism and communism, and protecting the interests of society, enterprises and individuals against people inclined to live at someone’s expense and give society as little as possible while getting from it as much as possible. When it is necessary to intensify various sectors of the economy or the whole of social life, the socialist principle of distribution makes it possible to manoeuvre with personnel with the purpose of speeding up development, giving greater 212 incentives for work and flexibly assessing socially useful activity.

p Compared with communism, socialism unquestionably asserts a less mature form of equality and justice. In socialist society there still remain differences in wealth and also “unjust differences”,  [212•*  and a certain inequality in the possibility of realising individual aspirations and in the level of materially reinforcing these aspirations. Also unquestionable is the fact that the operation of the socialist principle of distribution and the existence of money relations do not allow closing all roads to egoistic concentration on one’s own advancement, to self-alienation, to a market attitude to oneself, to bare utilitarianism, to relations to other people as competitors, and so forth. But one must have no understanding of Marxism-Leninism at all to say that the socialist principle of distribution according to work, the money form of exchange, the differentiated wage scale and operational economic autonomy are leading to a constant revival of bourgeois individualism. This principle strengthens legal and moral order, while violations of it are the source of evil. For that reason the CPSU is tireless in speaking of the need for improving distribution according to work and combining moral and material incentives.  [212•** 

p Let us note something else. Socialism cannot entirely resolve the problem of alternating forms of labour, of giving many-sided mobility to the functions of workers. The percentage of manual, non-mechanised labour is still high, particularly in agriculture, trade, the services industry and in ancillary work. Labour has not yet become the prime necessity and main interest in life (although major advances have been made in that direction). The attitude that work is non-voluntary, that it is compulsive activity, has not yet been shed by all members of society, and therefore there still are residual transmuted correlations between labour and enjoyment, between work and leisure. Freedom to choose activity that conforms entirely with people’s inclinations cannot as yet be fully assured. Not all 213 the citizens of a socialist state can be involved in the administration of social affairs. The individual has not yet become a universal being who has entirely surmounted segmentation, for he cannot embody in his activity the entire wealth of social relations. Remnants of inherited inequality relative to cultural values and of elements of cultural consumption still exist.

p We have mentioned the existence of distinctions between labour by brain and by hand, between administrative and executive functions. Hence the objective reasons that in some cases give birth to dissatisfaction with the character of labour (the impossibility of changing forms of activity, the priority growth of the educational level of the labour force as compared with the character of the functions performed by it, the still considerable percentage of jobs requiring monotonous operations, cases where the combination of social, collective and personal interests has been relaxed, and so forth). Cases where the rationalisation of various aspects of vital activity does not coincide with their humanisation have not disappeared. Red tape and formalism have not been weeded out, social boils such as irresponsibility in the fulfilment of social duty, embezzlement, drunkenness, abuse of office for mercenary aims, an anti-humane attitude to people and, lastly, crime as the extreme expression of immorality are still in evidence. The existence of immoral remnants of the past is one of the reasons for the need for a “special apparatus for coercion"  [213•*  and various social restrictions.

p On the whole, the individual still has the possibility of not linking the satisfaction of his need for a purposeful and happy life with socially useful work, of keeping his happiness apart from such work, of regarding work merely as a means of sustaining life, dictated by external expediency. There still may be cases of people looking for the meaning of life in lighter forms of self-realisation, which allows them to feel the self-authenticity of activity only in private life, in individualistic orientations, in acquisitive interests. A sinister role in preventing this orientation from dying away and sometimes in animating it is played by 214 bourgeois propaganda, which uses ideological and psychological methods to eulogise free enterprise, “clean” capitalism, “improved” by state-monopoly regulation and models of “liberalised” socialism, and strives (particularly in view of the expansion and complication of the ideological struggle between the two systems) to provoke discontent, disappointment and animosity among a certain segment of the people in the socialist world and bring to life destructive, demagogic and slanderous criticism. Clinging to every irregularity on the battlefield, it inflates any negative phenomenon in socialist society to global dimensions and on this false basis seeks to consolidate a perverse, distorted world outlook, apathy, philistine grumbling and the moral guidelines of quietism, stoicism and anarcho-asceticism.

p But, true to its methodology, nihilistic morality confines itself to a generalised description of the thoughts and outlook of these proponents of the sense of wretchedness. The revolutionary-critical orientation of the socialist consciousness predominant in society and, most important of all, the objective relations between people remain outside its field of vision. It believes that if there are people who, to a certain extent, do not feel at home in the socialist world and consider their work, the social system and its ideology as alien forces and regard other people as rivals and themselves as a market value that must be sold at the highest price, alienation prevails in the reality in which these people live. Nihilistic criticism thus undertakes to judge social life not on the basis of a direct analysis but only by generalising individual illusory reflections.

p It refuses to understand that the “higher the level of our society in its development, the more intolerable are the still occurring departures from the socialist rules of morality”, that “acquisitiveness, proprietary tendencies, hooliganism, red tape and indifference to one’s fellow humans run against the very grain of our system”.  [214•*  Nihilistic criticism tries not to notice—and this it knows how to do—that an uncompromising struggle is being waged in socialist society against subjectivism, voluntarism, arm-chair 215 administration, endless debates, departmental parochialism and other manifestations of red tape that impede the rooting up of elements of the old psychology. This criticism turns a blind eye when it must be seen and assessed that socialist society is systematically giving effect to purposeful steps to bring the administrative apparatus closer to the requirements of the people and enlist the people into participation in the work of the apparatus and to democratise all sectors of administration. While condemning any power, any social control, discipline and ideological influence, it ignores their class essence as something unworthy of attention. For that reason it has no other choice than to declare “absolute” freedom for all, everywhere, always and in everything. This freedom, however, is impossible. For the critics of communism the class nature of freedom remains as enigmatic as the meaning of the struggle between the two main ideologies and world systems, between socialism and capitalism.

p Nihilistic criticism identifies the revolutionary orientation of the consciousness with “shattering”, with the “spirit of revolt”. But what does it want to be shattered? The systems of management, control, law and order and the moral values and standards of socialism that inspire, organise and guide the struggle with everything outworn and stagnant, with evil, and ensure the establishment of new, more humane relations between people? In other words, this criticism proves to be totally unable to understand the revolutionary-critical character of people’s activity in the process of resolving the inner contradictions of life in the socialist world. The principal role in this activity is played by the working class, which has been and remains society’s principal productive force and occupies the leading position in socialist social relations. Its sense of commitment, political consciousness, selfless labour and courage have been the decisive factors promoting the building of socialism, defeating fascism and helping to assert communist social relations. The working class of the socialist countries retains this role in full in the struggle against imperialism. True to its internationalist duty, it heads the economic, political and ideological struggle for peace, national liberation and the socialist remaking of society on a global scale.

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p Nihilistic criticism, which covertly endeavours to disarm socialism ideologically, is irritated by precisely this leading role of the working class and the Communist parties heading it in socialist society. It equates the heroic self-awareness of the socialist peoples to the sense of contentedness, drawing from this fabrication the justification for its own anti-socialist orientation.

p Needless to say, in socialist society there still are people attracted by the utilitarian-practical orientation. Bourgeois ideologists grossly exaggerate the scale and influence of the views, norms and feelings conforming to this orientation. For instance, they speculatively depict the growth of consumption in socialist society as ringing in the triumph of a consumer counter-revolution in the foreseeable future. Moreover, they charge socialism with a deliberate striving to perpetuate manipulation with these views and feelings. They go to all lengths to drum into their disciples the pernicious belief that in the socialist world the official ideology and morality are lifeless and receive only outward approval, while the actual—mainly consumer—ideology and morality have “silent” support and that society has reconciled itself to this duality because scientific and technological progress has placed it before an inevitable choice of either opening the sluice-gates to the boiling torrent of consumer moods and passions or of keeping them closed and thereby running the risk of losing the social and moral submissiveness of the masses.

p What is the actual situation? In socialist society the living standard is rising steadily, high growth rates are maintained in the output of consumer goods, services are being expanded and the quality of goods is being improved. Statistics (during the past 15 years real per capita incomes in the USSR have nearly doubled, while the overall volume of material benefits and services has grown by about 150 per cent) and direct observations indicate that consumption is showing an extensive and, particularly, an intensive growth. On this question socialist society does not adopt a romantic, Utopian attitude or propound the ascetic moral of the producer, anathematise this growth or have recourse to organisational, ideological and psychological methods of restricting it.

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p Marxism-Leninism wages a determined struggle against the ascetic vulgarisation of the socialist ideal, against the primitive-egalitarian and anti-humane ideal of philistine barrack communism, against asceticism with its blind faith that the secret of all social evils and moral vices lies exclusively in the distribution sphere. This ideal covertly displays nothing but envy, a longing to bring everything down to one level, which is part and parcel of the pettybourgeois proprietary psychology. It demands not the development of the individual and the assimilation of the entire wealth of culture but the “abstract negation of the entire world of culture and civilisation, the regression to the unnatural simplicity of the poor and crude man who has few needs and who has not only failed to go beyond private property, but has not yet even reached it”.  [217•* 

p The individual’s development is determined by the wealth of his requirements, while the volume and quality of output depend on the volume and quality of consumption. Communism is the only social system that can provide every person with the necessary material benefits in accordance with his needs and deliver him from the necessity of having to look for the means for individual existence. It thereby opens up unbounded scope for the development of his natural talents. It is then that society will be able to receive from each according to his ability. Consequently, renunciation of enjoyment is not a saving because the possibility for enjoyment is not merely a result of the development of production but a means for the development of man and, therefore, an impulse for the expansion of production, an enhanced capability for production.

p As an element of petty-bourgeois ideology and psychology, asceticism comes into conflict not only with communism but also with all the principles of its first phase—socialism. Lenin repeatedly underscored the role of personal material incentive as a factor stimulating the building of socialism. Emphatically rejecting the Leftist demand that shock work should be combined with levelling in consumption, he noted that shock work is a preference, while preference without consumption is nothing, that the 218 people can be enlisted into building the new society with the help of the enthusiasm generated by the revolution reinforced by personal interest, by material incentives. Socialism makes no allowance for any negation of the individual, does not sacrifice his interests as something allegedly hostile to the interests of society and the collective. Socialism means not the absorption but the burgeoning of the individual, who in the collective receives everything he needs (and possible at each given phase) for the realisation of his individual talents and capabilities. This is realised not at the expense of the masses in favour of the individual and not at the expense of the individual in favour of the masses. It would be a gross mistake to believe that the rising level of well-being signifies demoralisation, a betrayal of ideals and of the revolutionary spirit.

p The growth of the living standard is the highest aim of social production in socialist society, the general orientation of long-term socio-economic development, of its organisation, rates, proportions and directions. This is recorded in the decisions of the 25th Congress of the CPSU.

p However, the growth of consumption is by no means the same as the growth of the cult of consumption as a special system of views, regulatory ideas and expectations. In socialist society no group of the population is interested in cultivating the fetishes of consumer morals, in provoking the rapture of the worship of things. First, the planned economy develops without any drugging of the demand (although scientific management of social processes requires a serious study of the laws of consumption and the mechanisms of directing the behaviour of the consumer). Second, on the basis of the enhanced level of labour productivity and the gradual diminution of qualitative distinctions in social labour socialist society is consistently reducing the difference between maximum and minimum remuneration for labour and bringing together group levels of income and, consequently, of consumption (while avoiding any excessive levelling up of the wages of people with different qualifications). This is being accomplished on the basis of social justice, in other words, on the basis of a general growth of the incomes of all groups but with the accent on priority growth for groups whose incomes are 219 below average. Third, in socialist society ostentatious consumption is not a criterion of the individual’s value to society, a means of advancement or a form of competitive struggle. Fourth, qualitative changes are taking place in consumption: the range of requirements linked with the individual’s harmonious development (need for creative and highly organised work; morally enriched association and co-operation) is rapidly taking shape.

p Although the factor of material incentives is by no means equal to the stimulation of the cult of consumption, the swift evolution of consumption has serious moral drawbacks and negative consequences (consumption for the sake of consumption, repulsive excesses in consumption, a bent for accumulation, and so forth). But for socialism the consumer orientation coincides in large measure with the problem of surmounting negative survivals of the past, of eradicating the conditions that favour their temporary preservation, with the successful elaboration of a spiritual alternative to the cult of consumption. Here a role of no little importance is played by the creation of a system of rational distribution of material goods and an optimal pattern of consumption that could help the individual to adapt himself to new situations in the sphere of consumption. At the 25th Congress of the CPSU Leonid Brezhnev said that it was necessary “that the growth of material opportunities should be constantly accompanied by a growth in our people’s ideological, moral and cultural level. Otherwise we may have relapses into the philistine, pettybourgeois mentality.”  [219•* 

p On the other hand, it must be borne in mind that under whatever pretexts it has tried to graft itself to the new society, to “inscribe” itself into the socialist way of life, the sense of contentedness, which is linked with the cult of consumption, by no means signifies devotion to socialism, to its morals and way of life, as may seem at first glance. This sense is embodied in notions that embellish reality, in the spirit of conservatism, in the striving to leave inviolable the relations, practices, traditions and stereotype views doomed to decay. This philistine, apologetic thinking 220 is incompatible with socialist society. It only seems to serve as a means of strengthening collectivist relations, the effi cient functioning of production and the managerial, ideological and educational systems. Remaining true to itself, the new society does not by its very nature accept servile contentedness, moral dogmatism, fear of criticism, placidity, complacency, the lulling pseudo-optimistic belief in the philosophy of letting things drift, or the belief that socialism neither faces nor will face difficult and primary socio-economic, moral and political problems. This is clearly stated in all the documents of the 25th Congress of the CPSU. Fear of difficulties, the glossing over and justification of mistakes and the illusory “conception of socialism as something lifeless, rigid, fixed once and for all"  [220•*  create a trend towards social immobility and lead to abandonment of the drive to improve reality in accordance with the communist ideal. Communist morals can discharge their functions in resolving the contradictions of social life only in the event they lay bare reality’s imperfections and reinforce the striving to remake that reality.

p While substantially expanding the sphere of moral regulation and the field of moral freedom, in all its storeys and compartments life in socialist society requires from the individual a higher level of consciousness, dedication to communist ideals, lofty principles, a sense of responsibility for his behaviour, fuller self-realisation and sympathetic attitude. The accent in the regulation of behaviour is shifting gradually from that part of the norms that is of a restrictive character to that which stimulates. As regards the individual, he finds a growing need for a more profound understanding of the social significance of norms, for action motivated by the inner conviction that it is required. He has become more demanding in his moral self-assessment, more discerning in his search for the significance of life and his place in society, broader in his understanding of happiness and higher in his moral level. There is now a more pronounced orientation on a lofty moral ideal, more many-sided than ever before and filled with a rich philosophical content. On this point Leonid Brezhnev noted 221 that “nothing adds so much to the stature of the individual as a constructive attitude to life and a conscious approach to one’s duty to society, when matching words and deeds becomes a rule of daily behaviour”.  [221•* 

Socialism is a social organisation that is constantly renewing itself. It is mobile and develops through a struggle between the new and the old, through the settlement of inner contradictions. In it the consciousness of leaders and the led must be able to detect these contradictions, establish how acute they are, their magnitude, the extent to which they have matured and the possibilities for settling them, regardless of whether contradictions arise as a result of the obsolescence of individual links, elements and forms of the social organisation or of their incompatibility with new requirements and tasks, or as a result of subjective errors or distortions. The socialist consciousness cannot reconcile itself with established but outworn or moribund practices and calls for the earliest possible reorganisation, rectification and improvement and for the assertion of the new. It not only detects contradictions in social development but also helps to resolve them, spurring social energy and charting programmes for collective and individual action.