The productive forces of people express their relation to nature, and the level of their development shows the degree to which nature is subjugated to the interests of society, the extent to which man dominates over its elements. However, in the prg^p’TS f prnHiirricm people enter into def- inite relations not only with nature, but also with jach other. It is these relations and their definite Interconnection which represent the major condition for the functioning and development of production. The transformation of nature in the interests of society may only proceed within the bounds of these relations, thanks to the social ties existing between people. These ties and relations are a social form under which man influences nature and effects its transformation and appropriation. “All production,” Marx wrote in this connection, “is appropriation of nature on the part of individuals within and by means of a 330 particular form of society.”  [330•1  In order to produce, men “enter into definite connections and relations with one another and only within these social connections and relations does their action on nature, does production, take place.”  [330•2 

p ,

p The relations which take shape (among people in the process of production, distribution and consumption ot material goods are production relations.

p Since production implies none other than man’s influence on the object of labour with the help of definite means of labour, production relations include, in the first place, people’s relations to the object and means of labour, i.e. to the means of production. The means of production may or may not belong totally or partially to the producers. Definite relations with the material wealth produced and the relations associated with their distribution are formed on the basis of relations with the means of production. If the means of production belong to the producers, then the material wealth produced also belongs to them, and is later distributed either equally ( under the communal form of ownership of the means of production), or according to the labour expended for society’s benefit (under the socialist form of ownership of the means of production), or according to the needs (under the communist form 331 of ownership of the means of production). If, on the other hand, the means of production are the property of a group of people who make their living by exploiting the working people, then the goods produced belong to the exploiters and the distribution of goods takes the form which suits the exploiters’ interests.

p The relations that are formed in the process of the exchange of various activities among members of society are also production relations. Such, in particular, are money and commodity-money relations.

p Depending on whether the means of production are public or private property, relations of _ either co-operation and mutual assistance, or of domination and subordination are established. Besides these two basic types of production relations,!^ some stages ot historical development certain transitional production relations appear, which are based simultaneously both on private and public property, and include elements of co-operation and mutual assistance, on the one hand, and of dom-j ination and subjugation, on the other.

p There are three types of production relations which typify domination and subordination and^ which correspond to the three forms of private property-slave-owning, feudal and capitalistthat appear and become dominant in definite periods of society’s development. These are slaveowning, feudal and capitalist production relations. Slave-owning production relations presuppose that all the means of production are the private property of a definite group of people (the 332 slave-owners), while the slaves who put these means of labour into operation and carry out production in the interests of the proprietor, are deprived of them. Feudal production relations are based on the feudal lord’s ownership of the land and other means of labour, as well as on partial ownership of the worker (who has his own means of labour and a plot of land at his disposal), whom the feudal lord can compel to work for him or can sell but whom he no longer has the right to kill, as was the case in slave-owning society. Capitalist production relations are associate.d with individual ownership of the means of production and the “free” hire of a formally (de jure) free worker, deprived of any means of production and, consequently, of any means of subsistence, who is compelled to sell his labour power to the owner of the means of production (the capitalist).

p Production relations that imply co-operation and mutual assistance exist in two forms: primitive-communal and socialist. The first type was brought into being by a low level of development of the means of labour, which precluded the possibility of doing work alone, while the latter is associated with highly developed forces of production requiring social ownership of the means of production in order to function normally and develop unimpeded.

p Transitional production relations were also of two types: one assumed the form of a transition from public to private property, while the second of a transition from private to socialist property. The first type was characteristic of the 333 period of decay of the primitive-communal system and the ensuing emergence of a class society. An example is patriarchal slavery, when some familes, who were breaking loose from the community, began to employ, in addition to the labour of the family members, the labour of slaves who were the lowest on the social scale both in the family and in the community. The second type of transitional production relations emerges when capitalist production relations are being transformed into socialist relations. For example, there are various forms of semi-socialist co-operation, based simultaneously on private and social ownership of the means of production, as well as various forms of state capitalism.

p Since production relations are the social form in which production functions and develops they neither exist in isolation from the productive forces, nor outside and independently of the means of labour and the people who put these means into operation. The productive forces and production relations are two different,, though organically linked aspects of production! together constituting a mode of production of material goods.

p ^^Ajaftode. of production is nothing other than a pattern of people’s activity which, while transforming various natural substances into the means of subsistence, in etlect, reproduces man’s physij:al existence. But the influence of a pattern of activity on people’s life is not confined to this. It determines their way of life. Marx and Engels pointed out that “as individuals express their life, 334 so they are".  [334•1  What individuals are depends on what and how they produce.

p A mode of production of material goods is the basis of all social life, since it determines the structure of the social organism, and the social, political and spiritual processes of life, as well as social and state relationships. Society’s division into classes, the relations among classes, the form of the family, the morals predominant in society, the legal relations and the religious and aesthetic views of people, etc.-all depend on the mode of production. Whenever the mode of production changes, changes also ensue in all social relations and the structure of the whole social organism.

Changes in the mode of production begin with changes in the productive forces of society. “In acquiring new productive forces men change their mode of production; and in changing their mode of production, in changing the way of earning their living, they change all their social relations.”  [334•2