Mechanisation of Production, replacement of manual labour by machines. The introduction of machines and machine systems frees workers from arduous, labourconsuming manual operations. Operating and maintaining machines become the workers’ principal function. Under socialism the objective of mechanisation is to raise labour productivity and the efficiency of social production, and to achieve important social results—easing and making work conditions healthier, raising workers’ cultural and technical levels, increasing wages and overall material well-being and overcoming essential 221 distinctions between mental and physical labour. Workers of socialist enterprises are vitally concerned with mechanisation of production. Under socialism the mechanisation of production is one of the main currents of the scientific and technical progress. Historically, labour-consuming and arduous work was mechanised primarily in basic production, while a considerable share of manual labour still persisted in other operations, especially auxiliary jobs. This is what is called partial mechanisation. In the period of developed socialism comprehensive mechanisation on the scale of the workshop and enterprise, in which manual labour is replaced by machines in all the principal technological and auxiliary jobs, is a priority. Comprehensive mechanisation ensures the rapid growth of labour productivity and the high economic effect, and facilitates the automation of production on a broad scale. The policy of rapid technical re-equipment of production, the designing and manufacture of machines and plant enabling working conditions to be improved, productivity raised and material resources economised, is to be implemented throughout the economy of the USSR in 1981-85 and in the period up to 1990. Fundamentally new machines and materials, as well as progressive technology are being created and introduced in production. More and more machines and higher-power-unit assemblies, highly economical plant, machine systems for the comprehensive mechanisation and automation of production are being manufactured. Under capitalism, capitalists make use of mechanisation of production and of the introduction of new machinery to heighten the exploitation of the workers, to excessively intensify their labour and extract the highest profits. In capitalist society higher unemployment is the social consequence of mechanisation, as the capital saving is the criterion of the use of machines. Therefore, the saving of wage labour is the economic limit of using machines. Socialist relations of production open up broad horizons for using the most effective machines, which ease the burden of labour and make it effective and creative. The saving of all social labour and the growth of public wealth to satisfy the requirements of society are the criterion of the socialist use of machines. Under socialism the elimination of arduous manual labour is a task of key social significance. The Constitution of the USSR proclaims: "The state concerns itself ... with reducing and ultimately eliminating all arduous physical labour through comprehensive mechanisation and automation of production processes in all branches of the economy.”