p 1 he Marxist-Leninist conception of man has inherited and continues to develop all the best elements in the theories of its humanist predecessors. In particular, Marxism has elaborated on the thesis of the 18th-century French materialists that man is the product of the social environment and education by adding that people change this environment in the process of their activity.

p Marx and Engcls dismissed the bourgeois abstract and anthropological approaches to man. According to the anthropological theory, man, taken as a point of departure, is a purely biological entity. This 189 principle, alive in contemporary bourgeois sociology, discounts historical analysis based on the objective laws ot social development and concentrates on the individual, on the "generally human" traits of man. Ibis principle is, in Lngels s words, "incapable of telling us anything definite either about real nature or real man.”   [189•1  Unlike the anthropological theory, Marxism- Leninism interprets man as a totality of socially conditioned and individual traits.

p When defining the essence of man, Marx concentrated primarily on the inevitable, eternal, and determining factor of man’s being -one that had turned the biological being into the human being. This factor is labour, "an eternal natureimposed necessity".  [189•2  Man’s human essence is expressed in labour, in activity.

p Objective reality transformed by man’s labour, the products of man’s labour, has become the reality of human life, man’s world, his "second nature”. The products of man’s labour are the “second”, “humanised” nature with respect to nature proper.

p Man is a social being, a personality, an individ- 190 ual. As regards his personality and his role as the subject of history, man is in the final count the product of the specific historical social relations in which he lives and works. Man’s intellectual essence is socially conditioned and incorporates features typical of the prevailing aggregate of social relations expressing definite legal, moral and aesthetical standards of the society or class. This law governing the shaping of personality shows the significance of social relations and the ways for the progress of the individual. At the same time the Marxist-Leninist approach takes into account the multitude of man’s individual traits.

p Marxist-Leninist theory, while recognising the determining role of production relations, emphasises the necessity to study the role played by the entire range of social relations in personality formation, to take full account of the influence of the micro-environment, living conditions, the family and the people’s individual traits.

p Another inherent feature of the MarxistLeninist conception is its close link with practice, with the revolutionary activity of the workers. As a result of a profound analysis of history and the obtaining social developments, in particular the lessons of the proletariat’s class struggle, Marxism-Leninism pinpointed the socially conditioned reasons for man’s enslavement and outlined the ways for man’s emancipation.

p The Marxist-Leninist theory of liberating the creative abilities of the worker has defined the main reason for man’s enslavement (the capitalist system), the chief historical force that liquidates that rea^"" (the proletariat), and the means for this emancipation (socialist revolution). The Marxist-Leninist theory of class struggle, socialist revolution, and the dictatorship of the proletariat does not preach coercion, as bourgeois falsifiers would have us believe. It offers scientific proof of the means necessary for ending man’s enslavement by man and for achieving truly humane relations among people.

p Lenin attached primary importance to the moulding of the new type of man-a dedicated fighter and revolutionary. He emphasised that the making of a socially significant individual is linked with his development as an active revolutionary personality. Disproving the assertion that revolution is not able to change man’s inner self and changes only the “outer” conditions of man’s existence, thus exerting an adverse influence on the personality, Lenin stressed that it is in the revolutionary struggle that one becomes a personality, asserts freedom and dignity, and develops one’s abilities to the full. Conversely, philistine adjustment to an exploiter social system suppresses or cripples the personality and breeds all types of socially undeveloped and intellectually repressed individuals who live in constant 192 fear of everything: the police, strikes, and participation in social movements.

Historical materialism sees man as the ultimate value. People’s welfare and happiness must he the ultimate goal of any humane society.