p Pre-Marxian sociologists considered that the spiritual principle played the determining part in historical development. So they presented great personalities-enlightened monarchs, kings, lawmakers, scientists, philosophers and other individuals engaged in science, politics and art-instead of the masses who produced the essential means of subsistence, as subjects of historical progress. As for the masses, they were proclaimed a blind inert force, representing an obstacle to historical progress and able to take positive initiative under the leadership of great personalities.

p Marxism has refuted these anti-scientific theories which downgraded the role of the masses in social development, thus distorting the actual situation for the sake of the exploiting classes. Marx and Engels, who established the determining role of production in society’s life, came to the conclusion that it is not great personalities, no matter how brilliantJtheV triay be. that represent the maorforce Of SOCial prnqrgsf; hilt i-hq

p Referring to the latter as the decisive force of historical progress, we should have a clear idea of their composition, i.e. which social groups and classes they include.

p The masses are mainly made up ot those classes and social groups whose labour ensures society’s existence and development. These are, in the first place, the working people who create the material goods, the scientific and technological intelligentsia related to the production process, the workers in the service industries, scientists, those working in the fields ot culture and art and those who are engaged in the upbringing and training ot the rising generation.

p The composition of the masses does not remain constant: it changes as society makes the transition from one stage of development to another, in particular, that from one socio-economic system to another. In slave-owning society the masses were the slaves, the artisans and the indigent sections of the free population; under feudalism-the peasantry, the artisans and the emergent bourgeoisie; under capitalism-the proletariat, the peasantry, the petty and middle bourgeoisie who are interested in society’s development, as well as the progressive intelligentsia; in socialist society-the Working class, the peasantry and the intelligentsia, and once the exploiting classes are finally elimiriated-the entire nation.

p The determining role of the masses in society’s development manifests itself, above all, in the fact that the masses, representing the major productive force, set the means of labour in motion and 485 effect the production of material wealth required for the existence and development of society. While constantly improving the means of labour and their labour skills, the masses develop the productive forces of society and make it imperative for the old production relations, which begin to inhibit development, to be replaced by new ones corresponding to the level of the productive forces.

p But this is not all that the role of the masses in social progress amounts to. By developing the productive forces, the masses take a most active part in supplanting one type of production relations with another and in the struggle to change the social and political system. Any new class which represents a more progressive mode of production works for victory by gaining the support of the masses, who are the main motive force of any social revolution. By participating in a social revolution, the masses pursue their own immediate goal of improving their living standard. However, by destroying the old production relations, they contribute to the development of production relations corresponding to the new productive forces, and thus ensure historical progress.

p In periods of social revolution, the creative abilities and the initiative of the masses manifest themselves in a more pronounced form than in periods when society is developing peacefully. “...The organising abilities of the people. ..,” Lenin wrote, “are revealed a million times more strongly, fully and productively in periods of revolutionary whirlwind than in periods of so-called 486 calm (dray-horse) historical progress.”  [486•1  “ Revolutions,” he wrote on the same score, “are festivals of the oppressed and the exploited. At no other time are the mass of the people in a position to come forward so actively as creators of a new social order, as at a time of revolution. At such times the people are capable of performing miracles....”  [486•2 

p It is not only in periods of social revolution, however, that the masses influence the political aspect of the life of society: the same happens in periods of peaceful development. By their active opposition, the working masses prevent the realisation of reactionary schemes worked out by the ruling classes and directed against the working people, national independence, peace and democracy.

p Since the masses represent the determining force of economic and political development, they make a sizable contribution to the advancement of culture-science and art. These arose and developed on the basis of people’s labour activities and, at the initial stages, formed a component part of them. By transforming reality and by creating new material goods that do not exist in a natural form, the masses developed their consciousness, mental abilities and capacity to create spiritual values, which are a materialised generalisation of people’s transforming activities. Later on, when manual labour separated from intellectual 487 work, spiritual activity became a monopoly of special social groups-classes. Even then, the role of the masses in the development of culture did not diminish, for the latter has its roots deep among the people and draws its inspiration from the ideas, feelings and strivings cherished by the masses. Maxim Gorky wrote that the people constitute not only the force that creates material wealth, but also the only eternal source of spiritual values. They are philosopher and poet, unsurpassed from the point of view of the topicality, beauty and brilliance of their works, who write all the great poems and tragedies, including the greatest of them all-the history of world culture.

p It is no accident that culture and art flourish in those periods of historical development when art comes to grips with obsolete social forms and battles for the realisation of progressive trends which arise in the masses and thus expresses the ideas, thoughts and aspirations of the overwhelming majority in society. Such, for instance, was the situation in France prior to the great bourgeois Revolution of 1789 and in 19th-century Russia during the struggle against serfdom and the monarchy.

p In describing the role of the masses in the development of culture, one should not forget that by their labour the masses create the material goods required by the intellectuals.

p By tracing the influence of the masses on the development of various aspects of social life, Marx and Engels discovered that the role of the masses in historical progress inevitably increases. 488 This pattern is a necessary consequence of the history-making process which grows in scope as the transition is made from one socio-economic system to another: in society’s consistent advance the transformations of the social organism become more profound and all-embracing. Thus, the transition from the slave-owning system to feudalism saw changes in the forms of ownership, the state, the law and social consciousness. These changes did not, however, effect any radical alterations in the working people’s condition or their economic and political status. They continued, as before, to work for the owners of the means of production, thus making up the labour force, which the exploiters used to their advantage. Like the slaves, they had neither political rights nor civil liberties, but the transition to capitalism brought about more radical and sizable changes. Capitalism offered civil liberties to the working people (though without proper guarantees), as well as certain political rights. The law formally proclaimed the equality of the exploiters and the exploited, but since private ownership of the means of production remained, the social position of the working people did not change. For the first time social transformations become all-round and profound only with the transition from capitalism to socialism. In the course of the socialist revolution radical changes take place in the economic, political and cultural spheres of the life of society: private ownership of the means of production is eradicated, antagonistic classes and the exploitation of man by man 489 are abolished; the domination is established of the working class-the proletariat-who uses state power to carry out gradual social transformations along socialist lines and to build communist society; considerable changes occur in public ideology -it becomes scientifically grounded for the first time and begins to express the interests of the proletariat and the working people in general.

p The expanded scope of social transformations and their profound nature makes it imperative for a growing number of people to become involved in history-making. “As man’s history-making activity grows broader and deeper,” Lenin wrote, “the size of that mass of the population which is the conscious maker of history is bound to increase.”  [489•1 

It is, therefore, no accident that the masses are much more active in capitalist society than in feudal or slave-owning societies. Under socialism, this activity becomes all-embracing, since the whole society joins in the conscious making of history.