p As already mentioned, society, while changing from the lower to the higher, passes through strictly definite stages of development. In the course of historical analysis, the task arises of singling out these stages and defining the specific features of each of them. The singling out of stages of development passed through by peoples and mankind as a whole presupposes the choice of an objective criterion of progress and the establishment of a determining aspect of society’s life, whose changes are associated with society’s development from the lower to the higher and condition this development.

p It is the productive forces that Marxism takes as the determining aspect in the life of society. These represent a factor which ultimately determines all other aspects of the social organism. 506 Their state and level of development determine the production relations of people in society, which directly influence the entire system of superstructural phenomena and relations. The level of development of the productive forces characterises the degree of man’s domination over nature and its spontaneous forces. This level is vital to the total amount of material wealth produced in society and, at the same time, to the quantity of labour expended by society to develop the means of production, science, art and other spheres of life. “A surplus of the product of labour over and above the costs of maintenance of the labour,” Engels wrote, “and the formation and enlargement, out of this surplus, of a social production and reserve fund, was and is the basis of all social, political and intellectual progress.”  [506•1 

p The level of development of the productive forces is thus the main indicator of the progress achieved by a nation.

p This factor alone is not, however, sufficient in itself to determine the stage of progress attained by a nation. The level of development of the productive forces determines the essence of the social organism only in the final count. It is production relations that exert a direct influence on the life of society.

p If, in determining the stage of social development of a nation, only the level of the productive forces is taken into consideration, societies representing different stages of development may be 507 erroneously classified as belonging to one group. The same productive forces, however, may accompany different kinds of production relations, because obsolete production relations are not automatically replaced by new ones corresponding to the attained level of the productive forces, and not in all countries at once, but gradually, as soon as the necessary conditions are ripe. It may happen, therefore, that in some countries a certain level of development of the productive forces coexists with obsolete production relations, while in others it may combine with the new production relations corresponding to this level. If this factor is ignored, one can make mistakes similar to that committed by the advocates of the “ industrial society" theory (Raymond Aron, Jean Fourastie, Robert Angell, Jessie Bernard and others). By taking as their point of departure the fact that essentially the same technology and an approximately equal level of the productive forces exist both in the Soviet Union and in the industrialised capitalist countries like Britain, France, and the USA, these ideologists assert that these countries belong to one and the same stage of social development and that they are in a state of transition to the “industrial society”.

p The rise of this theory should not, however, be totally attributed to the above mistake, but rather to a desire to prove that there is virtually no difference between capitalism and socialism, that these systems have a similar social nature and thus there is no need for a socialist revolution. Their views clearly tend to disregard the 508 nature of the production relations associated with the relevant productive forces.

Hence, the level of development of the productive forces and the production relations within whose bounds the productive forces function and develop, represents an objective criterion oi society’s progress. The productive forces determine the degree of man’s domination over nature and its spontaneous forces, while production relations determine that of man’s domination over the spontaneous forces of society and of man’s emancipation from the sway of these forces.