Ecological Crisis, damage to the environment, virtually impossible to eliminate, and caused in the capitalist world by the irrational, rapacious exploitation of natural resources by the imperialist monopolies; it has reached such dimensions that it has become a threat to health and an obstacle to increasing food resources and industrial production. The ecological crisis manifests the deep contradictory character of the way capitalist society makes use of scientific and technical progress, and the decay of capitalism; it leads to disbalance in the development of the productive forces, being an important factor of the deepening general crisis of capitalism. In the capitalist countries, the exploitation of natural resources with the exclusive aim of boosting profits has led to the tremendous pollution of the soil, water and air. This is most evident in the United States, which, with only 6 per cent of the world’s population, is responsible for 40 per cent of the world’s environmental pollution. Pollution in other capitalist countries has become extensive as well. Sharply intensified air pollution, a steadily deteriorating quality of drinking water and foods, higher noise levels and nervous stresses connected with increasingly chaotic city traffic plague the working people of the capitalist countries. The ever-growing scale of destruction of certain natural resources is the most important manifestation of the ecological crisis. In the last fifty years, nearly 40 animal species have become completely extinct in the capitalist world and another 660 species are endangered. In the capitalist countries, the lack of fresh water is heightened because of pollution and the tremendous increase in industrial and household consumption. Capitalist production is faced with a shortage of certain mineral resources, oil, in particular, because of their rapacious exploitation. The bourgeois state does take certain measures to control the environment and to reproduce certain natural resources, with the monopolies trying to shift most of the environmental protection expenditures onto the shoulders of the state. The working people in the capitalist countries are active in the efforts to protect the environment and demand that the government take strict measures against the monopolies which are responsible for the pollution. Environmental protection is a global task, and it cannot be resolved without extensive international cooperation which the socialist countries have always called for. Overcoming the ecological crisis presupposes the planned development of production on the basis of strict assessment of the availability of natural resources and the state of the environment, which is impossible under capitalism. Therefore, the struggle of the working people for a healthier environment merges with their struggle for radical social and economic change.