p Being the consciousness of a concrete person, individual consciousness is the mobile totality of his thoughts, views, interests and emotional and other psychic qualities. It is a reflection of the .complex interaction of the social environment of the given society and the given individual’s concrete, specific environment or micro-environment, a reflection of the universal and individual in the being of people. Moreover, individual consciousness includes self-consciousness, i.e., man’s awareness of himself, of his relation to the world, society, class and the collective.

p The correlation of the social and individual consciousness is a concrete manifestation of the general and the individual in the spiritual life of society. Just as all what is general exists in the individual, social consciousness is manifested only through the individual. This is natural, for only the individual, a concrete personality has the ability to feel and think. In its turn, individual consciousness exists only in connection with social consciousness. Each person lives and works in a society, belongs to a definite class, nation and social collective, therefore his own consciousness is not something that is closed or isolated but also embodies social (class, national) consciousness. This is all the more so because upon entering life he encounters not only readymade social being, but also social consciousness which he necessarily assimilates to one extent or another and in one form or another.

p Social and individual consciousness are one. They have a common wellspring—the being of people, a common basispractice, and a common means of expression—language. At the same time there are important distinctions in this unity. As compared with individual consciousness social consciousness reflects reality more deeply, more completely. It 361 segregates itself from many concrete, specific features in the consciousness of individuals and absorbs, assimilates only what is common in the consciousness of all individuals. As regards individual consciousness, in addition to the features inherent in the consciousness of one or another social community, it also contains unique features inherent only in a concrete individual and which are engendered by the specifics of concrete being. Since one of the main aims of communist education is to instil communist ideas in the consciousness of each person it has to take into consideration the specific features of individual consciousness and the individual’s mentality.

In the course of communist construction social and individual consciousness change and are enriched by scientific achievements and practical experience. More and more people assimilate communist ideas. The elevation of the individual consciousness to the level of social consciousness does not, however, depersonalise the former. Communist equality towards which Soviet society is moving is not equality of depersonalised people with stereotyped thinking, but equality of living, active and creatively thinking individuals.