Mode of Production, unity of two interdependent entities—productive forces and relations of production, characterising the level attained in the production of the vitally important means of production and consumer goods. Within this dialectical unity, relations of production represent the social form of the development of the productive forces. However, the form is inseparably bound to the content, and is dependent on it. The productive forces, their nature and level of development determine economic relations among people, and above all the type of ownership of the means of production. Relations of production, in their turn, actively influence the productive forces. They can both ensure their rapid development and can slow them down, whereas in certain conditions they can even doom the productive forces to partial deterioration. When the relations of production in a given society cease to correspond to the level of the productive forces, there appears the objective necessity to replace the obsolescent mode of production by a new and more progressive mode. The replacement of one mode of production by another is effected by a social revolution. The necessity of a social revolution is determined by the general economic law of correspondence of relations of production to the nature and level of development of the productive forces discovered by Marx. The mode of production of material wealth plays a commanding role in the system of material and spiritual conditions of social life. Society itself, its ideas, theories, political views and institutions generally depend on the given mode of production. History has seen five successive modes of production: primitive communal, slave- owning, feudal, capitalist and communist. The succession of modes of production is an objective process of human society ascending from primitive production and life to communism, the most progressive society. The contradiction between the developing productive forces and the relations of production that lag behind in their development, with private ownership of the means of production prevailing, is of an antagonistic nature manifested in the class struggle. The victory belongs to the class which is committed to the progressive mode of production. Under socialism, this contradiction is not antagonistic, and is resolved by society by consciously adjusting the relations of production to conform to the developing productive forces. A definite mode of production, where the superstructure corresponds to the economic basis, constitutes a socio-economic formation.