p The formulation of the materialist conception of history necessarily presupposed the elucidation of the role played by the production of material benefits in the life of society.

p Marx and Engels proceeded in their theory of society from the simple and clear fact that before people can engage in politics, philosophy, art, etc., they must have food, clothes and a roof over their head. i. e., their vital needs must be satisfied. And to possess life’s necessities one has to produce them.

p Therefore the production and continuous reproduction of material benefits is an indispensable condition for society’s existence and development.

p In the process of producing material benefits people make use of different implements of labour, such as the plough, the axe, lathes, and machines, the energy of water, wind, steam, electricity, the atom and various materials such as wood, stone, metal, plastics, etc. All that people use to produce material benefits, be it work implements (machines, mechanisms, instruments), auxiliary means (industrial premises, roads, canals, energy, fuel, chemicals), or objects of labour (ores, timber, plastics), constitutes the means of production.

p No machine or material or energy can produce anything by itself. They are used through man’s labour activity. The means of labour and the people who set them in motion through their skills, experience and knowledge are called the productive forces of society. Lenin said that the 52 working people are the primary productive force of society.  [52•1 

p In the process of production people necessarily enter certain relations: production relations. The productive forces express people’s attitudes to nature and show what resources people use to produce things. Production relations are those which arise between people in the process of production, distribution, exchange and consumption. The main element of production relations is ownership of the means of production. There are two major types of it: private and public. Capitalism, for example, is chiefly characterised by the fact that factories, transport, etc., are the property of capitalists. Public ownership of the means of production is typical of socialism. The productive forces and production relations together comprise the mode of production of material benefits. It is by the mode of production that various historical epochs differ from one another. There have been five successive modes of production of material benefits: primitive- communal, slave-owning, feudal, capitalist, and communist (the latter has two stages, socialism and communism proper).

p Marx and Engels discovered the law of the determining role of the mode of production of 53 material benefits in the life of society. They proved that each mode of production is characterised by quite definite social phenomena. Certain social structures are formed in conformity with the existing mode of production ; the people’s way of life also depends on it; even social consciousness, i. e. the prevalence of certain ideas in society, is actually determined by the mode of production of material benefits. Thus, the parasitic way of life typical of the exploiter class was out of the question under the primitive- communal mode of production : as the level of development of the productive forces was very low, everybody had to work hard in order to survive. Another example: under capitalism or the feudal mode of production, the elimination of class distinctions could not take place; this process can only occur in the communist formation, because it has to be preceded in material terms by the establishment of public ownership of the means of production.

p The mode of production of material benefits determines the course and direction of historical development. When the mode of production changes, society as a whole undergoes a change. Therefore, the history of social evolution is, above all, the history of successive modes of production.

p How then, does production itself develop and the modes of production of material benefits re- 54 place one another, causing radical changes in society?

p The roots of change and development of the mode of production should be sought in production itself, and not outside it.

p There is a certain logical dependence between the two sides of the mode of production - the productive forces and production relations-with the former playing the dominant role. Production relations are not formed accidentally, or by whim, but depend on the character and level of development of the productive forces. Thus, under the primitive-communal system, primitive tools of labour and the low level of the productive forces made people combine efforts to hunt wild animals, prepare plots of land for tilling, etc. Without this people would simply not have survived, at that time.

p The unity of the productive forces and production relations within the framework of one mode of production does not exclude contradictions between them. These are caused by the fact that the productive forces and production relations change in different ways.

p Production is not static, but constantly develops and improves. And the productive forces are the more dynamic element. Wishing to produce more and make their work easier, people improve the instruments of labour, accumulate experience and skills. These changes can be quite 55 substantial even within one mode of production.

p Production relations are more stable. They also undergo some change, but they essentially remain the same within the given mode of production. For example, during the existence of the capitalist mode of production the productive forces have considerably changed and grown, but the essence of capitalist production relations has remained intact. As before, they are based on private ownership and exploitation. And the bourgeoisie do everything in their power to preserve capitalist production relations.

p Contradictions arise between the new productive forces and old production relations. They become acute and cause conflict, as a result of which contradictions are exacerbated in various spheres of the life of society and, above all, in relations between classes. The replacement of old production relations with new ones becomes an essential requirement of social development. Sooner or later, this conflict is resolved in the only way possible: old production relations are replaced by new ones in the course of social revolution.

p Nowadays, capitalist production relations ( private ownership of the means of production and private capitalist appropriation) have come into conflict with and begun to impede the development of the productive forces. The fact that there are millions of unemployed in capitalist countries 56 proves that the main productive force of society the working people-is not being used, and moreover, it is frequently being worn away and devalued. The reason lies in capitalist production relations, and primarily in private ownership of the means of production.

p The scientific and technological revolution has aggravated the conflict between the productive forces and production relations under capitalism still further.

p The contemporary scientific and technological revolution began in the mid-20th century. This is a radical qualitative change in the productive forces of society and the entire culture of mankind resulting from the combination of a revolution in science and a revolution in technology and from the development of science into a direct productive force of society.

p The scientific and technological revolution is characterised by such processes as automation, the spread of electronic computers and methods of their application to various fields of man’s practical and cognitive activity; radical changes in the power industry-the use of nuclear and other promising types of energy; the production of synthetic materials possessing desired properties; intensive space exploration; etc.

p In capitalist society, the scientific and technological revolution serves to aggravate capitalism’s inherent contradictions and gives rise to new 57 ones, exposing increasingly clearly the bankruptcy of capitalist production relations. The growth of unemployment, the gradual destruction of the environment and the one-sided development of the productive forces due to militarisation are some of the negative phenomena which accompany the scientific and technological revolution and are caused by private ownership of the means of production and the selfish interests of capitalist monopolies.

p Military monopolies with interests in the arms race and in increasing tension in the world have brought mankind to the brink of a thermonuclear catastrophe, which threatens to destroy the productive forces of society and annihilate all life on Earth.

Replacement of capitalist production relations with relations based on public ownership of the means of production has become vital for social development. Socialism is not a whim, not just an ideal cherished by a certain group of people. Socialism today is an urgent requirement of social development as a whole.