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p May one recognise that history is governed by objective laws and also recognise man’s conscious (free; activity:’ The human consciousness, alter all, cannot cover the entire chain of events. Is it possible to blend historical necessity and human freedom?

p The reply of the adversaries of Marxism is a resolute "no”. Either you have objective laws, they say, or conscious activity, either historical necessity or freedom. The former rules out the latter, they say, and vice versa. Inasmuch as historical materialism recognises the objective laws of history, its critics aver that it ignores the part played by the conscious activity of classes, parties, and individuals. But this misses the mark.

p Necessity should not be confused with inevitability. The objective laws of history, as we have already said, are laws governing human activity. They cannot operate outside the activity of the popular masses, of social classes. Yet people consciously and freely create history if they take guidance in their knowledge of historical laws.

p Social laws shape the conditions and tangible opportunities for successful development. Society’s task is to discover these conditions and 207 opportunities, and to realise them through practical activity. The society that copes with this task will achieve success in its bid for progress; the one that does not, will wonder about in the labyrinth of history, will stagnate or backpedal. Historical success is ensured by knowledge of the social laws and by appropriate action.

p The development of capitalism leads inevitably to revolution. But revolution does not break out by itself. It took the popular masses in Russia, in other countries in Europe and Asia, in Cuba, Nicaragua, Angola, and Ethiopia a whole historical period of titanic effort to prepare and achieve revolution and the triumph of socialism.

p We know from history that in 1917 a revolutionary situation had taken shape not only in Russia but also in Germany and Hungary and other lands. In all of them there had even been revolutionary eruptions. Yet until 1945 the Soviet Union, on the one hand, and Germany and Hungary, on the other, developed in totally different directions. While in Russia the revolution was victorious and socialism was being built, in Germany and in Hungary the revolutions ended in a blood bath and power was taken by the most reactionary, fascist forces. Not until Nazism was defeated did Hungary and East Germany return to the path of socialist revolution; today, they are building a socialist society. But what titanic effort did it cost! Freedom fighters routed the enemy 208 and did away with exploitation only thanks to the revolutionary organisation and leadership ol their Communist parties, and their indestructible fortitude.

p We all know what selfless effort it took the Cuban people to crush the anti-popular dictatorship of exploiters and open the way to socialism.

p Thus, objective laws do not function with predestination. Action of social forces is needed to carry them into effect. Hence the historical responsibility of the people and their vanguard for the destiny of progress in their country. Historyvindicates those who realise the objective necessity of revolutionary change and strive to secure it, even at the price of immense effort and sacrifice. History has vindicated many of those who selflessly fought for the freedom of the people and assailed what seemed to be indestructible bastions of the old order.

p History does not vindicate those who rely on spontaneity and wait for freedom to fall into their laps, who make deals with reactionary forces and betray revolutionary ideals instead of taking resolute action when objective conditions are more or less ripe for it. Likewise, history does not vindicate those who disregard objective conditions and regularities, and kindle the fire of premature struggle that senselessly devoures hundreds or thousands of freedom fighters while the hour of freedom is put off for many years.

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p Historical activity can be spontaneou. or conscious. Accordingly, laws operate spontaneously or are consciously applied by society.

p Spontaneous activity is activity centred on the nearest aims and interests, and that discounts long-term and ultimate goals and results. Here the historical operation of social laws manifests itself as the result of a struggle between contending forces. Social forces, like forces of nature, are blind, violent, and destructive. One example of historical spontaneity is the operation of the law of competition in capitalist society.

p Conscious activity is activity by united social forces planned and co-ordinated on the scale of society in the interests of all society or of a class. Conscious activity takes into account and achieves the ultimate goals and results. Systematic economic, political, and cultural activity in a socialist state is a specific expression of objective laws as manifested through conscious activity.

p Although all people have reason, this does not mean that they make history consciously. By conscious historical activity we mean knowledge of the laws and perspectives of society’s development by the people, by political parties, and conscious subordination of their activity to the realisation of these laws. When once we understand the objective forces, wrote Engels, and "when once we grasp their action, their direction, their effects, it depends only upon ourselves to subject

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210 them more and more to our own will, and by means of them to reach our own ends."  [210•1 

p Conscious historical activity is historical freedom. It follows that freedom is not at cross purposes with historical regularities; on the contrary, freedom is achieved through understanding and realising them. Historically, social freedom is nothing but life and activity based on the knowledge of the laws of reality. Freedom to live, act, think, and make decisions reposes on the objective regularities that govern society and nature. Mankind has been able to create highly advanced technology and to organise production on a mass scale because it grasped the laws governing production. Similarly, men have learned to fight lethal diseases because they have cognised the essence of diseases. Progress of civilisation signifies progress of freedom.

p Historical spontaneity is conditioned by private ownership of the means of production and by opposite class interests. Conscious historical activity, on the other hand, asserts itself on the basis of social ownership of the means of production and relations of social unity.

Socialist construction is on the whole a consciously conducted process-but this must not be understood too simplistically. Socialism also 211 knows spontaneous processes (like the unpredictable results of individual economic decisions or the consequences of outside conditions). All the more so when the new society has not yet taken firm root and there still are remnants of the old class structure, while the material and technical base and culture are insufficiently developed. The higher the development of the new society, the narrower the sphere of spontaneity. Under socialism, the decisive condition for the “leap” into the realm of freedom is a profound study of the laws governing the new society, and scientific organisation of the management of social processes. Today, scientifically substantiated management of society is a basic demand set by the Communist and Workers’ parties in socialist countries.