p The decisive significance of the people in the historical process stems from the determinative role played by the mode of production in society’s development. Material production, as we have learned earlier, is the basis of social life, and the working people are the chief productive force. The working people consequently are the decisive force in social development, the real makers of history.

p In what way is the people’s role in history manifested?

p The working people make history first and foremost by their productive labour.lt is they who create all the material wealth: the towns and villages, factories and mills, roads and bridges, motors and machines, clothing and footwear, food and household utensils, in a word, everything without which we could not exist.

p The people are the main driving force of technical progress. Painstakingly and perseveringly, from day to day, from year to year, from century to century, often unaware of it themselves, they devised and perfected the implements of labour, and this in the final count led to radical technical revolutions, to changes in the productive forces. The development of the productive forces, in its turn, has brought about a change in the mode of production as a whole. Even under the most onerous oppression, the labour of the ordinary people created the material prerequisites for mankind’s progress, for the transition to a new social system.

p The people’s role in history, however, is not limited to developing the productive forces and thereby preparing the material conditions for the transition to a new social system. The people are also the main force which decides the fate of social revolutions, of political and national liberation movements. The class struggle, above all the working people’s struggle against their oppressors, of which the social revolution is the highest form, serves as the driving 227 force in the development of antagonistic class societies. Slave uprisings undermined the foundations of slave-owning society and were a prime cause of the transition to feudalism. The peasants and the urban poor were an important driving force in the bourgeois revolutions as a result of which feudalism gave way to the more progressive, capitalist system.

p In pre-socialist societies the people did not enjoy the fruits of their labour and struggle, but their work and struggle were the principal factors which ultimately led to their emancipation’ and the rise of the advanced, socialist system.

p The people have made a tremendous contribution to the development of mankind’s spiritual culture. “The people,” Maxim Gorky wrote, “are not merely the force which has created all material values; they are the exclusive and inexhaustible source of spiritual values; they are the first and foremost philosopher and poet in point of time, beauty and genius, the creator of all the great poems that exist, all the tragedies in the world, and, greatest among these tragedies, the history of world culture.”

p The people’s labour, their creative endeavours are wellsprings of science and culture. Many prominent scientists and writers, artists and other leading figures in the field of culture whose great creations have enriched mankind, have come from among the ordinary people. The people create remarkable epic poems and fairy tales, songs and dances which bring the greatest enjoyment. The most outstanding artists have always taken the models for their finest works from the inexhaustible treasure-house of folk art.

By prouucing everything necessary for man to live and work, the people provide mental workers with time to engage in intellectual activities. Finally, the masses create and improve language without which communication among men and, consequently, social activity, science, culture and art are inconceivable.