Material and Technical Base of Communism, large-scale, comprehensive mechanised and automated planned production, based on the complete electrification of the entire economy and ensuring the complete well-being and free all-round development of every member of society. This signifies a gigantic leap in the development of large-scale machine production in the process of the scientific and technological revolution. Alongside comprehensive mechanisation and automation of certain production processes, the necessary conditions are created for the move ahead to the comprehensive automation of production. Electricity produced by nuclear power sources is being expanded on a vast scale. Plastics, artificial resins and other synthetics which often 218 possess superior chemical qualities are successfully replacing raw and other natural materials. Production technology is qualitatively changing. New machinery and technology require people with greater knowledge and comprehensively developed abilities to work with them. The achievements of science and technology produce changes in the proportions of social production. The links between production and science, which has become a direct productive force, are reinforced. The social character of production intensifies. In a developed socialist society, the creation of the material and technical base of communism is one of the principal tasks of the socialist state of the whole people. This makes it possible to resolve the fundamental question of building communism—to ensure, through comprehensive mechanisation and automation of production and higher labour productivity, a full and prosperous life for every member of society, to create an abundance of consumer goods. The material conditions necessary for socialist relations of production to evolve into communist production relations are emerging. As the social character of production intensifies and its socialisation reaches a higher level, a stronger bond is created between the cells of social production, relations of comradely cooperation and mutual assistance develop in work collectives, and the community of interests of the workers strengthens further. The leading role of state socialist property (belonging to all the people) grows. A powerful upsurge of productive forces in agriculture brings agricultural production closer to industrial production in the level of mechanisation and qualification of workers. At the same time the gap between rural and urban life narrows, as the village is restructured. Human labour becomes more and more creative. Increased free and properly used time in a socialist society (see Spare Time under Socialism) is an important prerequisite of the individual’s all-round development. The creation of the material and technical base of communism in the USSR is accompanied by the increasing socialist economic integration of the CMEA member countries. This ensures evening out (rapprochement) of economic development levels of the socialist coun tries, and the creation of the necessary material conditions for the more or less simultaneous (within the same historical epoch) transition of the socialist countries to communism.