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a) The Dependence of Production Relations
on the Level of Development of the Productive Forces

p The productive forces constitute the content of production, while the relations of production are its 335 soci§L_£ontt. Since the productive forces are the content of production, they are in constant, continuous movement, in a state of change and de’yelopment. This is because production, while’ being the basis and condition of human society’s existence, functions uninterruptedly. People cannot survive without consuming the material goods created in the process of production. To replenish the consumed means of subsistence, new ones must constantly be created. Since, moreover, the population grows from generation to generation, so do its requirements. Social production should not, therefore, simply reproduce the consumed means of subsistence, but rather create greater quantities of them.

p The necessity of extended reproduction of the means of subsistence compels society constantly to improve its productive forces.

p The development of the productive forces occurs during the production process. By influencing nature with the means of labour, people accumulate production experience, develop working skills and acquire a knowledge of the phenomena they encounter. On this basis, they constantly introduce relevant changes into the means of labour, i.e. improve them and create new ones. The application of these new means of labour enriches the available production experience and helps to develop new methods for performing certain operations, thus raising the productivity of labour. This, in turn, brings about a further improvement in the means of labour, and so on and so forth. In the course of this continuous improvement in 336 the means of labour, in people’s production experience and their work skills, the productive forces grow and develop, thus paving the way for historical progress.

p When the productive forces reach a definite level of development, they bring about a change in production relations. The replacement of one form of production relations with another signifies a transition to a higher stage of historical progress, to a new socio-economic formation. Thus, the slave-owning system replaced the primitive- communal, feudalism replaced slavery, capitalism replaced feudal relations, and socialism replaces capitalist production relations.

p Each new generation inherits the productive forces created by its ancestors, utilises the achievements of practice and knowledge, and then develops them still further, thus creating a new link in the chain of historical progress. While inheriting the productive forces from the previous generation, each new generation is compelled to adapt to the conditions of labour that took shape on the basis of these productive forces and enter into relations within the bounds of which the given production relations are functioning. For this is the only way in which it can ensure both the further development of production and, at the same time, social progress. By further developing the productive forces inherited from the previous generation, each new generation realises, in effect, the opportunities offered by the level of development of practice and knowledge, and fosters those trends that are inevitably brought into existence 337 by this level. This means that society’s development and historical progress are realised objectively, irrespective of people’s will and wish, though they are the result of their creative activity. .

p “Men,” Marx wrote, “are not free to choose their productive forces-which are the basis of all their history-for every productive force is an acquired force, the product of former activity. The productive forces are therefore the result of practically applied human energy; but this energy is itself conditioned by the circumstances in which men find themselves, by the productive forces afc ready acquired, by the social form which exists before they exist, which they do not create, which is the product of the preceding generation. Because of the simple fact that every succeeding generation finds itself in possession of the productive forces acquired by the previous generation, and that they serve it as the raw material for new production, a coherence arises in human history, a history of humanity takes shape.... Hence it necessarily follows that the social history of men is always the history of their individual development, whether they are conscious of it or not. Their material relations are the basis of all their relations. These material relations are only the necessary forms in which their material and individual activity is realised.”  [337•1 

While being a form of men’s productive 338 activity, production relations depend on the productive forces and change in keeping with the latter. The dependence of production relations on the protluctive torces hnds its expression in the law of the correspondence of production relations fo fre level of development of the productive forces.

b) The Law of the Correspondence of Production
Relations to the Level of Development of the Productive
Forces

p The essence ot this law is that definite productive torces require strictly specific production relations corresponding to their level ot development, and that changes in the productive torces ultimately bring about relevant changes in production relations.

p The correspondence of production relations to the productive forces is an essential condition for the functioning and development of social production.

p We have noted previously that all specific production relations took shape on the basis of a strictly definite level of development of the productive forces and under its direct influence. This being the case, how is it that production relations may sometimes not correspond to the productive forces?

p Since the productive forces, which represent the content of production, are in a state of constant change, and production relations, being a social form of production, represent a relatively stable system of men’s interrelationships, within the bounds of which both the exchange of substances between society and nature and the exchange of 339 activity among people (who form society) occur, then at a definite stage of development of the productive forces a disparity inevitably emerges between them and production relations, which lag behind in their development. Though production relations were the form of and condition for the development of the productive forces in the first stage, when they corresponded to the latter, in the second stage, when a discrepancy emerges between production relations and the productive forces and these two come into conflict, production relations become a brake on the development of production.

p In the course of the further development of production, this contradiction is exacerbated and becomes a conflict determining the historical necessity of replacing obsolete forms of production relations and men’s activity with new ones corresponding to the level of development of the productive forces.

p The types of production relations that gradually replace each other “form in the whole evolution of history a coherent series of forms of intercourse, the coherence of which consists in this: in the place of an earlier form of intercourse, which has become a fetter, a new one is put, corresponding to the more developed productive forces and, hence, to the advanced mode of the self-activity of individuals-a form which in its turn becomes a fetter and is then replaced by another".  [339•1 

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p The dialectics of the transition from correspondence of production relations to the productive forces to a disparity between them in the course of historical development which is accompanied by the production relations turning from a form of development of the productive forces into a brake on development, can be easily traced by reviewing the history of human society. Let us discuss briefly the replacement, in the process of historical development, of one form of production relations by another.

p It the initial stages of human society’s formation, when the productive forces excluded any possibility for men of fighting nature alone, people obtained their means of subsistence through collective efforts. Collective labour determined common ownership of the means of production, as well as the relations of co-operation and mutual assistance among people.

p The primitive means of labour typical of primitive society gradually improved and developed: metal instruments of labour replaced primitive stone ones. An opportunity arose for the means of labour to be applied on an individual basis and for the private production of material goods to be organised. Since private production was conducive to a. greater social division of labour and specialisation of production, which, in turn, brought about higher labour productivity and further improvements in the instruments of production, it appeared at that stage to be more useful than production in common. Communal ownership of the means of production and 341 equal distribution did not offer an opportunity for displaying one’s initiative and deprived the worker of personal interest in raising the productivity of labour and in further developing the productive forces. There arose the historical necessity of replacing common ownership of the means of production, which no longer corresponded to the given level of development of the productive forces, with private property which, under the given circumstances, better suited the level of development of the productive forces. “Every change in the social order, every revolution in property relations, has been the necessary result of the creation of new productive forces which would no longer conform to the old property relations. Private property itself arose in this way.”  [341•1  Thus, with the appearance of private property, slavery came into being and slave- owning production relations set in.

p For some period of time slave-owning production relations were the dominant form in which the productive forces functioned and developed. Later on, however, they came into conflict with the productive forces and became fetters on their further development. The point is that the slave, who was considered property, i.e. was in the complete possession of the slave-owner, who could kill him without being punished, was not at all interested in his labour, in raising its productivity or improving the instruments of labour. 342 Moreover, brutally and inhumanly exploited, he hated his work for the benefit of the slave-owner and deliberately damaged the instruments of labour given to him. This forced the slave-owners to give to the slaves only instruments of labour that they could not damage. All this held back improvements in the instruments of labour and checked the growth of labour productivity. Hence, slave-owning production relations came into conflict with the further development of the productive forces and were replaced by more developed production relations-feudal production relations.

p The latter did create a certain material interest in work on the part of the worker-the serf. The direct producer possessed a plot of land, as well as certain instruments of labour necessary for production, along with some free time which the serf could use working for himself (over and above the time he worked for the landlord).

p The further development of feudal society’s productive forces gave rise to the capitalist manufacture and other enterprises, based on hired labour. Compared to the serf, the wage worker was more interested in raising labour productivity, since the payment he received for his work was now dependent on the quantity of output he produced or on the time spent. All this encouraged the development of the productive forces and, in particular, of the instruments of labour, which were continuously improved. First simple machines and then more complicated ones appeared. Their application and development brought about 343 a revolution in the productivity of labour, which made a big leap forward.

p Developing production based on hired labour, i.e. capitalist production, required free and more or less cultivated workers, capable of mastering complex technological processes and able to operate machinery. The labour force, however, was in the feudal lords’ hands. The peasants were attached to the feudal lords’ land and had no civil rights. Moreover, feudal relations held back the freedom of trade, which was part and parcel of the emerging capitalist productive forces. All this testified to the fact that feudal production relations had become a hindrance to fb** dpyplnpment of the productive forces, and so they gave way to capitalist production relations.

p The development of capitalist production was accompanied by the constant introduction of new, improved and increasingly complex machines, and by the further social division of labour, which conditioned the growing socialisation of production. Individual industries entered among themselves into essential, increasing contacts and interdependence, thus forming an organic whole in which each element required smooth functioning and development of all other components in order to operate normally itself. As a result, the social product appeared as the outcome of the activities of a huge number of people engaged in different industries, and thus became more and more social in nature. But in so far as the means of labour remained the property of individual capitalists, the production and distribution of output 344 was suited to their interests. This is how the contradiction between the social character of production and the private capitalist form of appropriation emerged and developed.

p The aggravation of this contradiction brings about periodically recurrent economic crises of overproduction accompanied by the destruction of the productive forces and means of subsistence created, chronic undercapacity of production, mass unemployment, and so forth. All this shows that capitalist production relations have come into conflict with the level of development attained by the productive forces and have begun acting as a brake on their further development. The historic necessity arises of replacing capitalist production relations with new, socialist relations, based on social ownership of the means of production, and presupposing the social form of distribution of the material goods produced. While corresponding to the modern level of development of the productive forces, socialist production relations create unlimited possibilities for the growth of production.

This is a concrete manifestation of the law of the correspondence of production relations to the level of development of the productive forces in society’s historical development.

c) The Influence of Production Relations
on the Development of the Productive Forces

p It follows from the above that production relations depend on the productive forces.

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p While changing under the influence of the productive forces, which have gone ahead in their development, production relations do not remain passive, but respond actively and influence the productive forces that have brought them into existence. This influence reveals itself, above all, in the fact that production relations provide an impetus for the development of production and society’s productive forces. For example, in slaveowning society the stimuli for the development of production were satisfaction of the slave- owners’ needs and creation of the material wealth they required to lead their idle lives. As for the slaves, the dominating production relations provided no stimulus and no interest for them to develop production.

p Feudal production relations, though no different from slavery as regards the stimuli for production development typical of the ruling exploiter class (since the feudal lords also wanted a life of leisure), nevertheless advanced one step by creating a stimulus for the exploited class, the peasantry, to work. The latter acquired a certain interest in developing production and the productive forces, but only when they worked on their own plot of land for their own benefit. While working off the quit-rent or corvee (that is when working for the feudal lords or the landowner), the peasant was not interested in raising labour productivity.

p Capitalist production relations created a new and more powerful stimulus for production development, both among the exploiters and the 346 exploited. The major goal of capitalist production is the appropriation by the bourgeoisie of an increasingly large quantity of the surplus product. Hence the unrestrained desire to accumulate wealth and expand production-a feature which did not exist in either feudal or slave-owning society. The major goal of feudal lords and slave-owners was to consume the product. It was no accident that in feudal and slave-owning society the rate of extended reproduction was rather insignificant.

p The worker is more interested in raising the productivity of labour than the serf was. The worker’s labour for his own benefit cannot be separated from his work for the capitalist’s benefit in time or in space, since every hour and every minute of his work brings benefit both to himself and to the capitalist. So when working on piece rate, the worker is interested in raising labour productivity. The degree of this interest is probably not high, since the worker realises that he is working for the capitalist’s benefit and enriching him.

p It is only socialist production relations that jcreate, for the first time, an overall interest on the part of the working people in developing production, under socialism, the workers’are aware that they are working entirely for their own benefit and for their society. This fosters a desire among them to raise labour productivity, improve technology, and develop production, it is  np accident that production grows in the socialist countries at a higher rate than in the capitalist world.

p “

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To sum up, the influence of production relations on the development of the productive forces finds its expression in the fact that production relations create stimuli for the development of production.