p The political consciousness is the system of ideas and attitudes, sentiments, and objectives underlying the activities of classes and social groups and reflecting their economic interests. It can be considered on the plane of political ideology and psychology. Political psychology is: the feeling of class solidarity, friendship, animosity, hate, patriotism, nationalism and chauvinism, internationalism and cosmopolitanism, political pessimism or optimism, political interests, illusions, attitudes, etc.

p Political ideology is the most concentrated expression of the interests and objectives of a social class, and its attitude towards other classes or social strata and the state. Political ideology is ideas and views of a class reflecting its attitude 151 towards class struggle, revolution, national liberation, and relations between nations; it embraces problems related to society’s political system, the state, law, war and peace, and others.

p The political consciousness is inseparable from political activity, for it is realised in this activity through political institutions, classes, parties, and mass organisations and movements.

p The political ideology encompasses the basic standpoints and ideas expressing the attitude of a definite class towards a given social system, and its view at the course of history in general.

p First, the political ideology of a class seeks to prove the necessity of the social system of which that class is the bearer. Thus, bourgeois ideology seeks to prove the necessity of the capitalist mode of production, maintaining that capitalist production relations are rational, for the bourgeoisie has a vital stake in them. Accordingly, the working class upholds the necessity of the communist mode of production.

p Second, the political ideology embraces the ways and methods of consolidating and developing a given social system.

p Third, the political ideology justifies the choice of political relations and forms of class struggle, and the political structure of society, seen as the most rational by the class in question.

p The political ideology is distinctly class-mod- 152 vated. All classes have their own political ideology which promotes their interests.

p The political ideology is inherently linked to political organisations and institutions through which classes promote their class interests. The ruling classes exercise their political activity through the state and legal organisations and institutions.

p In capitalist society political parties are bearers of political ideology. They formulate the objective. facing the given class and the methods and forms of achieving them. These are put down in the policy-making documents of the party and in the speeches and writings of the party’s leaders.

p The political programmes of bourgeois parties are deliberately vague. They are couched in democratic rhetoric and hold forth on liberty and human rights. The promises that abound in them are rarely fulfilled.

p The ideas of imperialist bourgeois politicians, notably in the USA, are clear examples of political adventurism. In the present conditions, when stockpiles of mass extermination weapons are growing on a vast scale, they pose a grave threat to civilisation.

p The political ideology of socialism is formulated and developed as the ideology of the working class and its party, as the political self- awareness of this class and its guide to action. As the ideology of the proletariat-a consistently pro- 153 gressivc and revolutionary class whose interests correspond to the objective laws and main trends of social development-the socialist political ideology is consistent, progressive, revolutionary and scientific.

The political ideology of the working class has its theoretical substantiation in the MarxistLeninist theory of class struggle and dictatorship of the proletariat, in the Marxist-Leninist doctrine on the bourgeois and proletarian state and law, socialist and national liberation revolutions, and the inevitability of the defeat of capitalism and the triumph of socialism. Marxist-Leninist views also underlie the doctrine on the causes and nature of wars in the age of imperialism, on just and unjust wars, and on the coexistence and peaceful rivalry of the opposite social systems of capitalism and socialism. Marxism-Leninism is working consistently for peace among nations and against imperialists and warmongers. This political ideology stands for equality and friendship among all nations and races, for national sovereignty and national independence. Socialist political views form the basis for the policies and practices of the Soviet socialist state and the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, as well as for the policies of the Marxist-Leninist parties of other socialist countries.