p Social consciousness is the aggregate of pe.ople’s ideas, theories and views, social feelings, habits and morals reflecting objective reality—the human society and nature. The social being of people is the main object which social consciousness reflects. Since social being is multifarious and complex, social consciousness, too, is multifarious and complex. In the first place we should distinguish social and individual consciousness, social psychology and ideology. In its turn social consciousness has diverse forms—political and 356 legal ideas, morality, art, philosophy and religion. Science, which is also a form of social consciousness, is at the same time turning more and more into a direct productive force of society. Forms of social consciousness arise and develop in their own way, and reflect various aspects of social being. The tasks they fulfil are also different. Idealism is unable to correctly explain the role of ideas, of social consciousness in the life of society. Idealists hold that ideas determine the entire course of social development, but this in no way corresponds to reality.

p Only historical materialism, by properly solving the basic question of philosophy as applied to society, has shown that the social consciousness of people is a product of their social being, that it is secondary, derived from material, production relations. It is in social being, the material productive activity of people, that we should look for the source of their ideas, theories and views.

p The history of society shows that as people’s social being, their material production relations, change so does their consciousness; old ideas disappear and new ones arise, conforming to the new conditions, the new social requirements. With the victory of socialism, for example, people’s social being changed radically: socialist property replaced capitalist private property. People’s ideas and views changed accordingly. For example, instead of the principle of individualism which is the keystone of capitalist morality, the principle of collectivism, the foundation of communist morality, took root.

Similarly, if we analyse any other form of social consciousness we shall find that its ultimate source is the material life of society.