V. Podoseiniki A.

Spirkin

A GLANCE AT
HISTORICAL
MATERIALISM
V. Podoseiniky
A. Spirkin

A Glance at
Historical
Materialism

Progress Publishers
Moscow
Translated from the Russian
by DAVID SKVIRSKY
 CONTENTS

Page
INTRODUCTION. 5

Chapter I NATURE AND SOCIETY.12

Chapter II PRODUCTION AS THE CARDINAL

CONDITION FOR THE LIFE OF SOCIETY ... 19
Chapter III SOCIAL SYSTEM.32

Chapter IV SOCIAL CLASSES AND THE CLASS

STRUGGLE.53

Chapter V THE STATE AND ITS ROLE IN

SOCIETY.81

Chapter VI HISTORICAL FORMS OF HUMAN

COMMUNITY.95

Chapter VII SOCIAL CONSCIOUSNESS AND ITS

FORMS.103

Chapter VIII SOCIAL PROGRESS ...... 126

CONCLUSION. 137
 !

./ j
 INTRODUCTION

The rapid and inexorable advance of the history

of human society has changed the appearance of
the world: a third of mankind is building socialism
and communism, mighty colonial empires have
crumbled, long-established regimes have disinte¬
grated into dust, many states have vanished from
the face of the earth, and dozens of new ones have
emerged. The march of time has witnessed the
rise and struggle of progressive and reactionary,
advanced and obsolete, correct and false ideas.
Countless individual and class, national and inter¬
state objectives and interests come into collision.
The sea of human passions-lofty and base, noble
and repulsive-rages, and there is always a
turbulent stream of contradictory feelings of love
and hate, kindness and evil.
Is it possible to discern some order and purpose
in this alternation of events? Science and the many
ages of human life have shown that objective laws
governing social phenomena operate in social life.
People can apprehend and utilise the laws of
social development in their own interests. >

5
 A section of Marxist-Leninist philosophy known
as historical materialism tells us what human
society is, deals with its laws of development and
shows how they are apprehended and utilised in
the practical activity of people.
In the same way as the many branches of natural
science study nature and its diversity of objects,
processes and links, human society is studied by
political economy, jurisprudence, history, ethnog¬
raphy, linguistics and many other social sciences.
Each of these sciences investigates a separate
sphere of social life. Although in their totality
the social sciences embrace all spheres of social
life, a simple sum of this knowledge does
not give an idea of society as a whole, of the
interaction of all its spheres. The reason for this
is that in addition to special laws governing the
development of economy, political life, language
and other spheres there are general laws of the
development of society as a whole. No branch of
social science studies them, yet without a
knowledge of these laws, which link all the
spheres of social life into a single whole, it is
impossible to understand the relationship between
the various aspects of the life of society or the
place of the different phenomena in the system of
social life as a whole.
In society we have material and non-material
phenomena, social reality and social consciousness.
A study of the link and relationship between them
provides the key to explaining the motive forces
of social development, yet no single social science

6
 specially studies the relationship between social
consciousness and social reality. No scientific
method of apprehending any social phenomena can
be worked out and no way for the revolutionary
transformation of social life in the interests of the
people can be found if the problem of the relation
of social consciousness to social reality is not
solved. That requires a general theory and method
of understanding the phenomena in social life.
Historical materialism provides that theory and
method. It is a philosophical science which deals
with the relation between social consciousness and
social reality, and with the most general laws and
motive forces of the development of society. It
gives the general theory and method of scientifi¬
cally cognising and remaking society.
Karl Marx and Frederick Engels created
historical materialism together with dialectical
materialism as an integral system of a world
scientific outlook, as a method of cognising the
world and remaking it by revolution.
Historical materialism signifies the application
of all the fundamental principles of dialectical
materialism to social life. The unbroken unity
between dialectical and historical materialism
makes Marxism an integral and consistent
materialist philosophy. Prior to Marx and Engels,
the outlook on social life was pre-eminently
idealistic. Take the 18th-century French philos¬
ophers. While explaining natural phenomena as
materialists they regarded history with the eyes
of idealists. They could not break away from this

7
vicious circle, saying that manners and morals
determined the state system and vice versa. In
the long run, they arrived at the conclusion that
human intelligence ruled history.
Paul Henri Holbach, for example, considered it
enough for an atom to run amuck in the head of
a monarch for a tremendous change to be
precipitated in the destiny of nations. "An excess
of acridity in the bile of a fanatic," he wrote,
"inflamed blood in the heart of a conqueror, the
indigestion of some monarch or the whim of a
woman are sufficient cause to start a war, to send
millions of people to a slaughter, to destroy
fortresses and turn cities into dust, to plunge
nations into poverty and misery, to cause famine
and infection and to spread desolation and
calamities for a long succession of centuries."
Views of this kind on social development show
that many philosophers of the past did not and
that to this day bourgeois scientists do not
understand the objective laws governing social
phenomena, that they regarded and still regard
them as being purely accidental.
Prior to the emergence of Marxism, thinkers
tried not only to explain the past and present of
mankind, but also to take a look into the future.
The scientists who turned their eyes to the
future were mostly utopian socialists, who lived
in the first half of the 19th century. They aimed
searching and scathing criticism at capitalism and
urged its replacement by socialism and commu¬
nism, They attributed the hardships of the common

8
 people to private ownership, which, they said,
estranged human minds from one another and was
a constant source of hostility in society, a source
of deceit and dishonesty, the cause of war in all
preceding epochs.
The Utopians had many useful ideas about the
future communist society. But they neither saw
nor could see the force that could become the
creator of the new society. They did not find the
true road to their objective because in their day
the conditions for such a transition had not
matured.
Marx and Engels banished idealism from
social science and gave a materialistic solution
to the cardinal problem of philosophy in its
application to society. In contrast to the idealistic
interpretation of the history of society, Marxism
proved that social conditions of life determined
the consciousness of people and not vice versa.
Human life and society are founded on labour,
on the production of material values.
Our ancestors became people thanks to labour,
which is the decisive condition for social progress.
Showing the substance of the new, materialist
interpretation of history, Engels wrote: "Just as
Darwin discovered the law of development of
organic nature, so Marx discovered the law of
development of human history: the simple fact,
hitherto concealed by an overgrowth of ideology,
that mankind must first of all eat, drink, have
shelter and clothing, before it can pursue politics,
■science, art, religion, etc.; that therefore the

9
production of the immediate material means of
subsistence and consequently the degree of
economic development attained by a given people
or during a given epoch form the foundation upon
which the state institutions, the legal conceptions,
art, and even the ideas on religion, of the people
concerned have been evolved, and in the light of
which they must, therefore, be explained, instead
of vice versa, as had hitherto been the case."*
People have been and still are engaged in labour.
The real makers of history, therefore, are not some
mysterious celestial forces, not kings, military
leaders or legislators, but the masses, the classes.
To understand the course of history, one must
proceed not from the activity of some individual,
but from the actions of tlae masses, of social
classes.
Marx and Engels applied materialism to
their interpretation of social life and thereby
accomplished a revolution in social science.
Characterising the essence of the revolution
accomplished by Marxism in the conceptions of
society, Lenin wrote: "The chaos and arbitrariness
that had previously reigned in views on history
and politics were replaced by a strikingly integral
and harmonious scientific theory, which shows
how, in consequence of the growth of productive
forces, out of one system of social life another
and higher system develops-how capitalism, for
instance, grows out of feudalism."**
* Marx, Engels, Selected Works, Moscow, Vol. II, p. 167.
Lenin, Collected Works, Vol, 19, p. 25.

10
 After discovering the objective laws of
development of society, Marx and Engels evolved
the theory of scientific socialism. They proved that
far from being a fantasy, socialism is the natural
outcome of the development of capitalist society,
that as capitalism develops it digs its own grave.
They brought the epoch-making role of the
working class to light and proved that the road to
the new society lies through the revolutionary
dethronement of capitalism.
Historical materialism reacts to the development
of society, to the accumulation of new knowledge.
This science was raised to a higher level of
development by Lenin. In our day the new
phenomena in the life of society have been
formulated in the programme documents of the
world communist movement.
Chapter I

NATURE AND SOCIETY

What is society!

Society is a complex social organism, whose

inner setup represents the sum total of a
great diversity of economic, social, family and
ideological links and relations founded, in the long
run, on human labour. It embraces material
production and the resultant production, econo¬
mic, and social relations (which incorporate
class, national and .family relations), political
relations and, lastly, the cultural sphere of
social life-science, philosophy, art, morals, and
so forth.
There is no abstract society in the same way as
there is no abstract man, but there are specific
forms of human social organisation, for example,
socialist society, capitalist society, feudal society,
and so on. Despite their differences, they have
features that distinguish them from a herd of
animals and, generally, from everything that is
not society.

12
 Relations between nature
and society

There would seem to be nothing simpler than

to classify some objects as natural and others as
social. In reality, however, that is not easy to do.
The trees in a garden have been planted by man,
but their seed and growth are a natural
phenomenon. The soil is part of nature that is
transformed by man. Domestic animals are objects
of nature in which man's purposes have been
realised to a certain extent through artificial
selection. Buildings are erected by man, but the
materials are taken from nature. Man himself is,
of course, a being of nature, but first and foremost
he is a social being.
Man lives on land and is inseparable from his
geographical environment, i.e., that part of nature,
which has particularly close relations with society
and is influenced by it. The geographical
environment embraces rivers, seas, forests, fields,
all climatic and soil conditions, minerals, flora and
fauna.
Life appeared and continues to develop in the
geographical environment. The history of man is
the continuation of the history of the earth. We
are tied to our geographical environment by close
bonds, so much so that we cannot live outside it:
spacemen, who temporarily leave the earth, carry
with them a "piece" of terrestrial life. Despite all
its qualitative distinctions, society remains a part
of a vaster whole, of nature.

13
 The history of nature and the history of society
interact, are dependent on each other and are
mutually bound to each other.
Mankind not only inhabits but also remakes
nature. Since its evolvement, it has been changing
surrounding nature on an ever-growing scale,
expending incalculable labour in the process. By
his labour man has, among many other things,
cut down forests, drained swamps, built dams,
towns and villages, and covered the continents
with dense networks of railways.
Mankind is turning nature's riches into means
of cultural life. For countless ages lightning,
cutting through the darkness of night and often
causing destruction, struck fear into the heart of
man, making him prostrate himself at the sound
of thunder. But man harnessed electricity, forcing
it to serve him, so that today lightning submissively
flashes in glass bulbs, illuminating streets and
houses and driving machines and trains. In
addition to transporting to other climatic conditions
and remaking various species of plants and
animals, man has changed the appearance and’
climate of his domicile.
The geographical environment is being remade
at a relatively rapid rate and substantial changes
may be observed in it in the course of thousands
and hundreds of years and even decades. Forj
example, by ploughing the land, people annually ,
displace a quantity of soil that is three times
greater than the quantity of the volcanic products
rising from the depths of the earth during the
 same period. In the past five centuries mankind
has extracted from the earth at least 50,000 million
tons of carbon and 2,000 million tons of iron.
In the course of the past century industrial
enterprises have added to the atmosphere about
360,000 million tons of carbon dioxide, increasing
the atmosphere's content of this gas by almost
13 per cent. It is believed that the quantity of
carbon dioxide added to the atmosphere is enough
to raise the mean temperature by one or one and
a half degrees.
The farther society develops the more will it
change the geographical environment by its labour,
giving it new properties that remove it ever farther
from its original state. These new properties,
created by the labour of preceding generations,
enable the new generations to enlarge the range
of means of labour and articles of consumption.
The influence of the geographical environment
on social life changes with the advance of history.
If we look deeper into the past we shall find the
forces of society successively weaker and their
dependence on surrounding nature correspondingly
greater. For example, in ancient times natural
factors compelled people to settle primarily near
rivers.
The geographical environment also influences
the features of production. However, while
stressing the need to take natural conditions into
consideration, we must not overestimate their
importance or, like the partisans of the
geographical trend in social science, regard them

15
as the decisive force of social development. The
latter attribute social development to the features
of the climate, soil and geographical position of
a given country, maintaining that these features
alone determine the destiny of peoples, their social
and political system, way of life, and so on.
Economic and cultural life presupposes the
presence of a definite minimum number of people
in a given territory, i.e., the necessary density of
population. The constant growth of population is
one of the natural conditions of life and of the
development of society.
In the epoch of capitalism the population
increased at a much faster rate compared with the
preceding period. Scientific achievements and
changes in social conditions have brought down
the death rate. However, the bourgeois system of
production proved to be unable to make effective
use of the increasing population. In bourgeois
society a considerable number of workers cannot
apply their labour. They form a reserve army of
labour, i.e., an army of unemployed, which is joined
by ruined small producers. Relative overpopula¬
tion becomes especially marked under imperialism.
In socialist society the law of population is
characterised by the employment of all people in
socially useful labour, by the planned distribution
of production and an increase of the population.
As a whole, the population of the world has
grown as follows: at the beginning of our era it
was approximately 200 million,- during the Renais¬
sance it increased to 500 million; in the mid-19th

16
century-to 1,000 million; by 1930-to 2,000 mil¬
lion; in 1964-3,200 million.
This growth alarms many bourgeois scientists.
They draw the conclusion that famine and other
sufferings are inevitable as a means of restoring
a balance between the population and the available
means of subsistence. One of the founders of this
false theory was an English curate named Thomas
Robert Malthus, who formulated his notorious
"law of nature", according to which the population
is growing much faster than the means of
subsistence.
Science and experience have proved that the
earth has a growing ability to increase its
productiveness, providing there are the correspond¬
ing social and technical conditions. The earth
always gives man as large a quantity of its
products as the amount of means and labour he
puts into it. Chemical fertilisers, improved
methods of land cultivation, reclamation, irriga¬
tion, and so on, are bringing about a steady
growth of the output of farm produce.
There is no threat of a scarcity of natural
resources, of a shortage of food or of raw
materials for the manufacture of consumer goods.
Science is discovering tremendous reserves. This
is particularly true of modern chemistry and
nuclear physics. Geologists have found that there
are more minerals in the world than had been
thought. Besides, mankind has hardly started
tapping many sources of raw materials, partic¬
ularly, the wealth of seas and oceans.

2-93 17
 It is assumed that within the next century the
population of the world will increase to 8,000-
9,000 million. But that does not bear out the
Malthusian conclusions.
Constant starvation and undernourishment can
be eliminated only if imperialism and colonialism
are thrown overboard. The emergent peoples can
surmount poverty on the condition that they
strengthen their independence and national
economy, and develop culture and science.
The growth of population and the geographical
environment are thus major factors of social
development. But they do not determine the course
and direction of this development. In the final
analysis, the decisive role is played by the pro¬
duction of material values.
 Chapter II

PRODUCTION AS THE CARDINAL

CONDITION FOR THE LIFE
OF SOCIETY

The production of material values is the

foundation for the existence of society and the
prime condition for its development. It provides
the requisites for transition from one social system
to another. In the process of labour the implements
that man uses change and we observe a change in
the people themselves, in their practical skills and
consciousness. Society's economic way of life
likewise changes, the relations between people
acquire new features, and organisations, establish¬
ments, ideas and morals undergo a transformation.
Material production is the principal and most
vital field of human activity. One can appreciate
this because in order to live man must have the
means of subsistence, and in order to have these
means he must work. Human life would be
impossible without labour, for man cannot rest
content with what nature offers him in the shape
of finished products. By combining his labour with
the matter of nature and by utilising her laws, he
makes things that nature cannot give him. Labour
is the conscious activity of people directed towards

2* 19
the remaking of objects of nature with the aid of
implements in conformity with the requirements
of man.

Productive forces
of society

Production requires materials that can be

worked. These are land, minerals, timber, and so
forth. But man cannot remake nature with his
bare hands. As the foundation of life and of the
development of society, the production of material
values begins with the manufacture and use of
implements of labour, which, as Marx put it, are
the bones and muscles of production. Today, in
particular, production requires machines, instru¬
ments and other implements of labour. The
objects man makes with the purpose of influenc¬
ing nature and transforming her in his own
interests are called implements oi labour.
Even at the very earliest stages of their existence,
when they lived in herds, men could not do
without the simplest implements, for example, the
stone chopper. The role of implements of labour
was steadily enhanced with the development of
mankind. In our day the process of production
would have been inconceivable without intricate
machine-tools and mechanisms driven by steam,
electric power or the energy of the atom.
In addition to implements of labour, production
requires factory buildings, storehouses, means of

20
 transport and sources of power. Taken together
with the implements of labour these are known
as the means ot labour. Together with the objects
of labour, the means of labour form the means
oi production.
Naturally, people and not the implements of
labour play the chief role in the process of produc¬
tion, for they create and operate the means of
production. Without people the means of produc¬
tion would be dead. Man and his labour are the
earth's most valuable riches. Manpower, the labour
of man, is needed to bring the means of labour
into the process of production. Iron, as the saying
goes, is forged not by the hammer but by the black¬
smith. Workers, working men, as Lenin pointed
out, are the main productive force of mankind.
The productive forces are thus the means oi
production, primarily the implements of labour,
created by society, as well as people possessing
production experience and skill and producing
material values.
The level of the development of society's
productive forces is judged primarily by the level
of technology. In technology mankind embodies
its centuries of experience, methods of remaking
nature and level of mental development.
The discoveries and achievements of science are
used in technology in one way or another. These
discoveries and their use in production in the shape
of new materials, new implements of labour and
new ways of organising production have caused
technical revolutions.

21
 Labour productivity measured by the quantity
of output per unit of time is the index of the level
of development reached by society's productive
forces. What does labour productivity depend on?
Primarily on the level of technology, the skill of
the workers, the level reached by science and its
links with production, and natural conditions.
Improvements in technology enable man to
harness ever mightier forces of nature and to
broaden his skill and knowledge. While formerly
implements of labour were an extension, as it
were, of the muscle power of man's hands, today,
in the form of, say, computers they are an
extension and aid of the human brain. Some mental
operations that formerly were the exclusive field
of man are now being carried out more and more
by machines. However, technical progress has
various social consequences that depend on the
type of social system. Under capitalism, for
example, automation inevitably leads to a growth
of mass unemployment, ever more recurrent crises
and other evils. In socialist society, however,
technical progress leads to improved working
conditions, a higher standard of living and a
higher level of culture and technical training.
The productive forces thus mirror the relations
between society and nature. The level of their
development shows how far man has succeeded
in dominating the forces of nature. This level is,
in its turn, determined primarily by the imple¬
ments of labour, the quantity of energy available
to industry, the organisation and technology of

23
the production process, the development of science
and by the degree to which scientific achievements
and technology are utilised by people for the
satisfaction of their own requirements.
But this is only one aspect of production. It is
necessary to examine what else characterises it.

Production relations

From the very beginning, production has

existed as joint activity of people. In order to
produce, people must enter into definite relations
with each other. The relations that take shape
between them in the process of producing material
values are called relations oi production. In
primitive society all able-bodied members of
the clan community jointly procured and shared
food and helped each other in struggle and in
difficulty. The means of production belonged
to the clan, i.e., they were commonly owned. In
social production all people were on an equal
footing.
These relations underwent a radical change in
slave-owning, feudal and capitalist societies. They
became relations of domination and subordination
that sprang from the fact that exploiters came into
possession of the means of production and the
oppressed were deprived of such possession.
Relations of co-operation and mutual assistance
are established with the transition to socialism.
23
This is due to the fact that in socialist society the
means of production become public property.
Thus, to elucidate the nature of the relations of
production at various stages of human develop¬
ment we must ascertain v/ho, in a given society,
owns the implements of labour, raw material
resources, the land, buildings, and so forth. In
other words, the relations of production are
characterised primarily by the form of ownership.
History shows that the position held by people in
society, their place in production and, consequent¬
ly, the nature of their relations with one another
depend on the form of ownership. For example,
in socialist society public ownership gives the
working people the leading role in social produc¬
tion, makes their labour a matter of honour and
glory, and forms relations of friendship and
mutual assistance between them.
The relations of production are thus material
relations that form between people in the process
of the production of material values independently
of their consciousness or will.
The two major aspects of production are the
productive forces and the relations of production,
which are inseparably bound up with each other.
This unity shows the method by which people
produce material values, i.e., this unity between
the productive forces and the relations of produc¬
tion comprises the mode of production.
How do these two aspects of the mode of
production interact and what role does this inter¬
action play in the history of society?

24
 Ever since society emerged people have been
producing material values. For nearly a million
years human requirements have not had a single
"day off". Each satisfied requirement engendered
a new requirement, which, in turn, demanded new
products and, consequently, new implements, and
so on. While the development of production gives
rise to new and refashions old requirements,
developing consumption stimulates the develop¬
ment of production.
Production develops chiefly under the impact
of changing productive forces, which are the most
mobile factor of material life because the develop¬
ment and improvement of every new implement
of labour engender the need for yet another imple¬
ment of labour. Technical inventions and their use
in any one field give rise to the need for reorgan¬
isation in other fields. Thus, machine spinning
called machine weaving to life.
Every change in the productive forces is
accompanied by a change in the relations of
production. But while society's productive forces
change rapidly, the forms of ownership are
extremely stable, existing for hundreds of year's
(feudal and capitalist), millenniums (slave-owning)
and even hundreds of thousands of years (primitive
community). However, within the framework of
these periods the productive forces undergo
substantial changes. Consequently, the two aspects
of the mode of production develop unevenly. But
this unevenness has its limits. When the relations
of production lag behind the productive forces we

25
find contradictions rising. With time these con¬
tradictions deepen and result in conflict, for
then the relations of production act as a brake on
the development of the productive forces.
The conflict between obsolete relations of
production and developing productive forces is
settled through the replacement of the old rela¬
tions of production by new ones that conform
with the level of development reached by the
productive forces. In societies founded on private
ownership, the relations of production cannot
conform with the uninterruptedly developing
productive forces indefinitely. There will be con¬
formity only at the initial stage of a mode of
production. Then the relations of production will
again begin to lag behind the development of
the productive forces. This leads to the emergence,
at a new level, of contradictions between the new
productive forces and the old relations of produc¬
tion. Then the contradictions develop into a
conflict once again, and history takes a further
leap in its development. The old system is
defended by society's reactionary forces, who
make every effort to save the obsolete relations
of production because they (the obsolete relations)
enable them to dominate society, to exploit and
oppress the working people. For that reason the
progressive forces of society break the resistance
of the forces of reaction by revolution.
There is, thus, a law-governed relationship
between the two aspects of the mode of production.
To enable production and, with it, the whole of

26
 society, to move forward successfully, the relations
of production must conform to the level of
development of the productive forces. If there is
such conformity, the relations of production
facilitate the development of the productive forces,
but if it does not exist the relations of produc¬
tion hinder this progress.
Let us now briefly examine how the relations of
production influence the productive forces. Produc¬
tion is promoted by people motivated by definite
interests. If a social system encourages people to
work, improve the technology and the organisa¬
tion of production, enhance their skill and raise
their cultural and technical level, it facilitates the
development of the productive forces. History
has shown that socialism is such a system. On the
other hand, if a social system places the working
people in a position where they are not interested
in promoting production it obstructs the develop¬
ment of the productive forces. Such is capitalism.

Basis and superstructure

of society

The relations of production play the main role

in the entire system of social relations between
people and comprise society's economic basis,
which gives rise to social ideas and to political,
legal, cultural and other social institutions, i.e.,
to all that is known as the superstructure. Political,
legal, moral, aesthetic, religious and philosophical

27
theories and views are forms of social conscious¬
ness, each of which is linked up with the corre¬
sponding organisations and institutions: for
example, political ideas are linked up with
political parties, political and legal ideas are linked
up with state institutions, and so forth.
The superstructure engendered by a basis is
inseparably bound up with it: a definite basis
brings to life the corresponding superstructure.
Take the capitalist system. It is dominated by
capitalist relations of production, which are
founded on private ownership and the exploita¬
tion of man by man. The political system fully
conforms with these production relations: the
bourgeoisie rules the economy and, for that reason,
state power is held by it. The dominant political,
legal, moral, philosophical, religious, aesthetic and
other ideas and the corresponding institutions—
the political parties, the judiciary, the Church, the
educational institutions and so forth-protect the
interests of the bourgeoisie and serve as means of
suppressing and oppressing the working people.
The upheaval taking place in the superstructure
in the period of a social revolution consists in the
transition of political power from the reactionary
classes to the new, progressive class, in the uproot¬
ing of the old system of social institutions, in the
replacement of the ideology that had been
predominant by a new ideology. For example,
the socialist revolution overthrew the rule of
the exploiter classes, established the rule of the
working people and utilised this power in the

28
interests of the working people to create a new
basis and superstructure.
With the eradication of the old basis, the former
superstructure ceases to exist as the ruling system
of views and institutions. Some of its elements
survive the basis that had engendered them and
merge with the superstructure of the new society.
For example, in the sphere of art, philosophy and
morals the continuity of certain elements of the
old superstructure is preserved while all reac¬
tionary elements are cast away. Socialism and
communism succeed to all the real values created
by the foremost thinkers of the past.
However, by proceeding from the fact that the
superstructure depends on the basis, can the
economic basis of society be used to explain any
phenomenon of the superstructure? No, and here
is the reason why. Philosophical, artistic, aesthetic
and other views are relatively independent, in
particular, in the sense that they influence each
other. Moreover, the dissimilarity of their closeness
to the economic basis must be taken into considera¬
tion. Realistic art, which flourishes in a number
of countries, cannot, for example, be deduced
directly from the bourgeois basis. Art is influenced
by the traditions of folklore, progressive
ideological trends in various countries and many
other factors. In the final analysis, in this sphere
as well, the basis of society plays the determining
role but it influences art indirectly through the
politics, morals, philosophy, traditions and history
of the given society. It is important to bear in

29
mind that in a society split into classes the basis
itself is internally contradictory. Its contradictions
are mirrored in the contradictions of the
superstructure. For example, the capitalist basis
gave rise not only to bourgeois institutions and
ideology, but also to proletarian ideology. For the
struggle against its class enemies, the proletariat
evolved its own scientific theory-Marxism-and
set up its own organisations: trade unions,
co-operatives, political party, and so on. It
evolves its own moral principles and political,
legal and aesthetic standards.
The relative independence of the superstructure
manifests itself, furthermore, in the fact that in
encouraging people to act towards a definite goal
it thereby comes forward as an active social force,
influencing the rise, life and development of the
basis. Thus, in a society based on exploitation,
the predominant views and institutions served
and continue to serve as the foundation
for economic and political inequality, for the
exploitation of man by man. At the same time,
these ideas and institutions were and are still
utilised by oppressors in their struggle against
the oppressed masses.
The superstructure of socialist society, primarily
its key elements-the socialist state and the Marxist
party, Vv^hich organise the economic, political and
cultural life of the people-play a tremendous role
in the building of the new society, in the struggle
for peace and the freedom of nations.

30
 Society is, thus, a complex social organisation.
At a first glance it would seem that by adopting
decisions and decrees, sending notes and so on,
political leaders direct the course of history. Yet
in the life of society all these facts are merely
the outward manifestation of deep-going processes.
Numerous forces, both material and non-material,
interact in society and each plays a different role.
Among all these forces there is one that is decisive
and in the long run determines the nature of all
the others, right up to the highest spheres of
cultural life. That force is the production of
material values.
Chapter III

SOCIAL SYSTEM

In contrast to bourgeois sociologists, who discuss

society in general, Karl Marx suggested a concrete
approach to this problem, bringing the concept
of the social system to the forefront. As a sum
total oi all its elements at a definite stage oi
development-mode of production, as well as
family relations, manners and morals, level oi
scientific development, i.e., the entire superstructure
-society is called a social system.
The productive forces and the relations of
production form the material framework of society.
Despite the diversity of features in their
development, all nations traverse, in the main,
one and the same path of history.
In primitive times people lived in relatively
scattered communities. Their ties were unstable
and, as a rule, limited to contacts between
neighbouring tribes. Later, with the appearance
of recorded history, society gradually began to
develop on a world-wide scale. This is seen, first
and foremost, in the fact that all nations go
through mainly the same development, whose

32
 milestones are social systems with their general
and specific features of economic, social, political
and cultural life.
The successive replacement of social systems
shows the general trend of human development.
But not all nations have passed through all
systems. That is understandable. Although in one
way or another history was and is made by all
peoples, not all nations emerged simultaneously
and not all of them have the same long records
of development. Even ancient peoples with a long
history, despite their isolation from each other,
passed through generally similar stages of social
development. Other peoples by-passed or almost
by-passed one social system or another. For
example, the Teutonic and Slav tribes passed from
the tribal system directly to feudalism, by-passing
the slave-owning system. Some peoples, the
Mongols, for instance, arrived at socialism directly
from an early form of feudalism. At present, a
third of mankind is building the communist
system, a large part of humanity is living under
capitalism, while some peoples are still at the
stage of tribal relations. Having liberated them¬
selves from colonial slavery, the developing
nations are doing their utmost to by-pass the
capitalist road of development. Although in their
development some nations have not passed through
all social systems, the road of social development
is, nonetheless, determined by the systems succes¬
sively replacing each other. In the end, all nations
will come to socialism and communism, because

3-93 33
that is where the law-governed replacement of
social systems is leading them.
World history shows us how mankind progressed
from the lowest social system to the highest, to
communism. Let us briefly outline this progress.
History's first form of society was the clan-tribal
system. The implements of labour were of the
most primitive kind: club, stone axe, flint knife,
spear with a stone or bone tip, trap for animals.
Then the bow and arrow were invented. The joint
labour of the members of the primitive community
and their mutual assistance were a necessary
condition for the production of implements, the
procuring of the means of subsistence and
the struggle against nature. In primitive times the
common ownership of the means of production
was founded on common labour. Each person
worked according to his strength and ability,
served the common cause and thereby furthered
his own interests. People were equally interested
in the production of material values, the making
and improvement of implements and in lightening
their difficult labour. This stimulated the develop¬
ment of production.
Despite their colossal effort, the extremely low
level of development of the productive forces, the
negligible experience, the meagre knowledge of
the surrounding world and the primitive
implements of labour gave people such scanty
means of subsistence that they were constantly on
the verge of starvation and could only sustain
themselves with great difficulty. The producer had

34
 no surplus that could be used by other members
of the community. The principle of equal
distribution of products operated under these
pitiful conditions of life.
Customs and rules of behaviour, which took
shape in the course of centuries, maintained fairly
rigid order within the tribe. Under the tribal
system power was held by some member of the
tribe by virtue of his personal prestige, experience,
knowledge, agility and courage. Although the
tribal system was free of the loathesome features
that later appeared in exploiter societies, it was
tormentingly difficult for human life. Suffice it to
say that the expectancy of life averaged approxi¬
mately 18 years.
As time passed the foundations of the tribal
system began to totter and the system itself
entered a period of disintegration. It perished
through the same cause that engendered it-the
development of the productive forces. Improved
implements of labour, the transition from stone,
bone and wooden implements to implements made
of metal brought about a substantial change in
the methods of procuring the means of life. These
new implements made it possible greatly to
enhance the productivity of labour and extend
the field of its application. The development of the
productive forces gave rise to various forms of
the social division of labour between different
branches of economy (hunting, livestock-breeding,
farming, handicrafts); a new division of labour
came about within individual branches, between

3* 35
physical and mental labour. The relations of
production grew ever more complex. The tribe
and clan began to disintegrate into families, which
became independent economic units.
People began to produce more than was
necessary for their immediate requirements. This
surplus product fostered the expansion of trade
at first between tribes and then within the tribes.
The possibility arose of appropriating the fruits of
the work of others, thus engendering private
ownership of the means of production. The former
division of labour was supplemented with the
division of society into working and non-working
people. At this stage of social development, the
relations of production began to acquire the
nature of class relations. All these processes
crystallised in the course of collisions and the
unremitting struggle between the different sections
of society. The productive forces, which had
mushroomed, clashed with the primitive-communal
relations of production: the narrow limits of the
sharply isolated tribal communities became an
obstacle to their further growth. This contradiction
caused the primitive-communal system to be
replaced by the slave-owning system.
Under that system society found itself divided
into opposing classes: slave-owners and slaves.
The prime feature was that the slave-owner owned
not only the means of production but also the
workers, the slaves. Formerly, people had worked
together and shared the meagre fruits of their
labour. Now the standard of living had risen. But

S6
 enmity entered into the relations between people.
Having increased his power over nature, the
labouring man found himself a slave, who no
longer owned either the products of his labour or
the means with which he created these products.
He no longer belonged to himself. He became a
"talking animal" that belonged wholly to its
master. All the products produced by the slave
belonged to the slave-owner, while the slave
himself received only what was necessary to
sustain life.
We have already noted that owing to the
increased labour productivity a certain surplus of
the products of labour was formed. This surplus
became the material basis of exploitation. But
because labour productivity was still extremely
low, the exploitation of the slaves took the
cruellest of forms. The life of slaves, the Russian
philosopher Alexander Herzen observed, was a
succession of suffering. Poverty sat at their cradle,
reared them and was their faithful companion
throughout their short life,
A special apparatus of coercion and compulsion,
the state, appeared to maintain the domination of
the slave-owners, and, at the same time, a system
of laws and legal standards was worked out to
perpetuate the will of the slave-owners.
The slave-owning mode of production was a
higher and thereby more progressive stage in the
development of society than the primitive-
communal system. Slavery was the first step of
civilisation. The concentration of the means of

37
production and of manpower in the hands of big
slave-owners and the state made it possible to
build structures that the tribal communities could
not even dream of. Slavery helped to increase the
output of commodities, extend farming, livestock¬
breeding and handicrafts and, thereby, promote
trade. Trade and monetary relations began to
develop.
With the labour of slaves man began to build
centres of economic, political and cultural life:
towns of the ancient world, irrigation systems,
temples and palaces. The iron plough and the loom
were brought into use. Grain farming, truck
gardening, wine-making and butter-making
developed. Manufacturing enterprises were built.
Parallel with the development of production,
labour skills and the methods of organising labour
were improved. By producing food and other
commodities, the slaves ensured the accumulation
of wealth and its concentration in towns, and
this provided a growing material foundation for
the rising culture and created the possibility for
developing science and art.
Historical progress was secured through the
merciless exploitation and oppression of slaves.
Mankind's material and cultural edifice was built
on their sweat, blood and bones.
However, at a certain stage, the slave-owning
form of production relations, that had hitherto
given greater scope for the development of the
productive forces, turned into its own antithesis:
the slaves had no incentive to work, to improve

38
 the implements of labour. The productive forces
developed at a snail's pace. The slave did not care
to use new implements, regarding them with
hostility. Slave labour became unprofitable, and,
gradually, slavery began to outwear itself, to
wither away. It was driven out of history by the
same force that brought it in, by the development
of society's productive forces. Finally, under the
onslaught of slave revolts the slave-owning system
collapsed and was replaced by a new system,
feudalism.
The relations of production in feudal society
were based on the ownership of the land by the
feudal lords. This provided the foundation for
exploiting the peasants. But the peasants were not
entirely the property of the feudal lords. The latter
could buy peasants, beat them or sell them, but
they no longer had the right to kill them. Under
the feudal system, peasants and artisans, too,
owned means of production and economies, but
their ownership was based on their own labour.
Compared with slaves, serfs had greater incentive
to increase labour productivity, because part of
the time they worked for themselves. They
therefore did their utmost to increase output.
Crafts and trade developed considerably in feudal
society. Crafts were separated completely from
farming. Artisans' workshops appeared in the
towns. The productive forces developed further
in the period of feudalism. The iron plough
became widespread in agriculture. Vine-growing
and truck gardening continued to develop. The

39
artisans, who increasingly began to specialise in
various fields and became skilled at their work,
improved their implements of labour. More
and more uses were found for iron. Blast¬
furnaces appeared. The compass was invented
and this promoted navigation. Books began to
be printed.
Feudal laws consolidated social and economic
inequality, the division of people into classes and
estates: nobility, clergy, peasants, merchants, and
so on.
By degrees, the developing productive forces of
feudalism came into conflict with the predominant
relations of production, because as time went by
this form of ownership increasingly fettered
production. The serfs had no inducement to work
free for their lord. Almost the entire surplus
product received from the natural economy with
its extremely low labour productivity was spent
by the feudal lords on consumption, the
accumulation of articles of consumption, luxurious
living, and so forth. The nobility used only a small
part of their incomes to extend production. All
this held up the further development of society.
Trade capital formed within the feudal system
and step by step a new, the capitalist mode of
production began to take shape. The bourgeoisie
required manpower that was free of feudal
dependence and had no property. It organised
large artisan workshops-manufactories. When it
acquired economic power, it rallied the masses-
the peasants and the lower strata of the towns-:

40
and, with their help, accomplished revolutions that
swept the feudal relations of production away and
established the capitalist system.

Capitalist system

This system has the following features: its

productive forces are founded on large-scale
machine production; the basic means of production
belong to a small section of society, to the
capitalists; the bulk of society consists of
proletarians and semi-proletarians, who are
deprived of the means of production and forced
to sell their labour and by their labour to create
wealth for the ruling classes. Consequently,
capitalism is founded on private ownership of the
means of production and on exploitation of hired
labour. The securement of surplus value is the
basic law of capitalist production.
By fostering a thirst for profit, the accumulation
of capital, competition and a tremendous
socialisation of production, capitalism gave a new
stimulus for the development of the productive
forces and began to use scientific methods of
production on a large scale. Urged on by his desire
to increase his profits, the capitalist invests heavily
into production in order to extend and improve it.
"The bourgeoisie, during its rule of scarce one
hundred years," Marx and Engels wrote in the
Manifesto of the Communist Party, "has created
more massive and more colossal productive forces

41
than have all preceding generations together.
Subjection of nature's forces to man, machinery,
application of chemistry to industry and
agriculture, steam-navigafon, railways, electric
telegraphs, clearing of whole continents for
cultivation, canalisation of rivers, whole popula¬
tions conjured out of the ground-what earlier
century had even a presentiment that such
productive forces slumbered in the lap of social
labour?"* However, all this was created at the
price of ruthless oppression of the working masses,
the suppression and extermination of entire
nations. Tens of millions of people were shipped
from the African continent alone. Capitalism is
characterised by anarchy of production, periodic
crises, chronic unemployment, mass poverty,
competition and wars. The basic contradiction of
capitalism-that between the social nature of
labour and the private capitalist form of ownership
-finds expression in the class struggle of the
proletariat against the bourgeoisie.
In the 1870s capitalism began to grow into
imperialism. Lenin gave an exhaustive
characteristic of imperialism. He showed that it is
firstly monopoly capitalism, secondly, parasitical
or decaying capitalism and, thirdly, dying
capitalism. At the stage of imperialism free
competition is superseded by the rule of the
monopolies, i.e., of large associations of capitalists,
who concentrate in their hands the production and

^ Marx, Engels, Selected Works, Vol. I, p. 39.

42
marketing of the greater part of commodities. In
its pursuit of maximum profit, the bourgeoisie
intensifies the exploitation of the working people
in its own country and in colonial and dependent
countries. It engages in a desperate struggle for
the repartition of the world. The monopolies and
the state form a close alliance-state-monopoly
capitalism-which gives unprecedented rein to
militarism.
Under imperialism all the contradictions of
capitalist society, primarily the contradiction
between labour and capital, between colonies and
the metropolises, reach breaking point.
Bourgeois relations of production cease to
conform with the level reached by the productive
forces, curbing their development. A striking
manifestation of this is the constantly observed
disparity between demand and supply; an
abundance of commodities and insufficient
purchasing power of the population. This results
in starvation and poverty in the midst of plenty.
By itself abundance cannot drive away want and
starvation because its path to the masses is
blocked by private ownership. The owners of
goods prefer to dump them into the sea, burn them
or let them rot rather than reduce the price. They
care nothing for the fact that hundreds of millions
of people, particularly in the less developed
countries, are undernourished.
The reason for these ugly phenomena is that
under capitalism production and distribution are
determined not by the requirements of society, but

43
by the selfish interests of the capitalists, not by
the needs of the people, but by the profit of the
wealthy. Private ownership prevents the masses
from living the life that the level of development
of production can offer.
Although technical progress is still continuing,
its rate is far below what it could have been under
the present level of the productive forces. Besides,
the trend of this technical progress does not
facilitate the satisfaction of human requirements,
while human labour is being utilised more and
more for the creation of means of destruction, for
preparing war. This means that the capitalist
system has outworn itself. This becomes particu¬
larly evident when we examine the world cap¬
italist system as a whole. A small number of
countries have reached a high level of development
of production by exploiting a large portion of the
world, primarily, colonies and semi-colonies. The
glaring disproportion in the development of the
metropolises and the colonies is one of the greatest
evils that imperialism has brought to many peo¬
ples.
The productive forces of modern society are
striving to liberate themselves from the economic
fetters of capitalism. The monopoly bourgeoisie,
naturally, is making every effort to save the
capitalist system. But it is unable to avert the
inevitable: it is like a magician who cannot cope
with the mighty forces his invocations have
brought into being. The downfall of capitalism is
not only desirable from the standpoint of the

44
further progress of society, but also economically
inevitable. The wave of class and national
liberation struggles is rising steadily higher. The
eclipse of the capitalist system is inexorably
drawing nearer; the epoch of transition from
capitalism to communism has come.

Communist system

The material requisites of the new system are

cast in the bosom of capitalism. The consolidation
of fully developed communism is preceded by a
more or less prolonged period of construction,
during which the economy, social relations,
politics, ideology and culture undergo a change.
This period begins with a socialist revolution and
the establishment of the dictatorship of the
proletariat, and then passes through several stages
of development. The first of these is the period of
transition from capitalism to socialism, which ends
with the building of socialism, the first phase of
the communist system.
Under socialism there are two forms of public
ownership: state, i.e., ownership by the whole
people, by the socialist state, and co-operative and
collective-farm, i.e., ownership by individual
collective farms or co-operatives. Both are socialist
forms of ownership, with state ownership predom¬
inating. Exploitation of man by man is excluded
in all its forms. Class relations acquire the nature
of steadily increasing co-operation and mutual
assistance. The socialist principle of distribution.

45
i.e., "from each according to his ability, to each
according to his work", becomes consolidated on
the basis of socialist ownership.
A cultural revolution is accomplished with the
result that socialist ideology becomes predominant
in socialist society.
Socialist relations of production give the
broadest scope for an unprecedentedly rapid rate
of development of the productive forces. For
example, in the People's Republic of Bulgaria, a
formerly economically backward country, the
industrial product increased in the period 1950-62
by 1,400 per cent as compared with the 1937 level.
On the other hand, in the capitalist world there
was only a 300 per cent increase in the same
period. Socialism eradicates such stimuli of
industrial development as competition and pursuit
of capitalist profits, but it creates new and more
powerful stimuli. Under socialism all people work
for society and, therefore, for themselves, and this
labour is extremely productive. The people are
interested in making the utmost use of machines
and improving them and all other means of
production, and in enhancing their own skill and
knowledge. Society's interest in raising labour
productivity harmonises with the personal interest
of the people, an interest that stems from the
socialist principle of distribution according to
work. Payment according to work gives people
an incentive to improve the results of their work.
This teaches them to work to the best of their
ability and gives rise to moral incentives to work.

46
 The combination of material and moral incentives
to work is vividly mirrored in socialist emulation.
Production is rationally distributed and all
branches of the national economy are developed
under a scientific plan.
Socialist society moves towards the highest
phase of communism in accordance with definite
laws. Communism springs from socialism, being
its natural continuation and development and
bringing about an improvement of many of its
features and aspects. This is natural because
socialism and communism are phases of the same
communist system, a system founded on social
ownership of the means of production. This
explains why socialism and communism have the
same general principles. The transition from
socialism to communism is a necessary historical
process that can neither be arbitrarily violated or
by-passed. Precipitousness and haste can only
impede and slow down the advance to com¬
munism, and attempts to skip the socialist stage
by all sorts of artificial measures can only cause
the gravest of harm. Disregard for the objective
laws of transition from socialism to communism
can lead to a serious dislocation of the entire
social organism. It is impossible to pass over to
communism by, for example, equalising distribu¬
tion. Before the transition to communism can be
effected huge material and technical resources
that can ensure an abundance of material blessings
must be built up and the people taught to live and
work in a communist way. Communism does not

47
signify equality in poverty. It is the highest stage
of development with universal abundance, full
freedom for the all-sided development of the
individual and unlimited opportunities for enjoy¬
ing life.
The shoots of communism spring out of the
bosom of socialism. This engenders another
feature of the transition from socialism to com¬
munism, namely, that if the Party and Government
pursue a correct policy it is accomplished without
conflict between classes and social strata but, on
the contrary, with ever greater co-operation and
unity between them. This is possible because in
socialist society all classes and social strata are
similarly interested in the transition to com¬
munism.
The building of communism is not a sporadic
but a purposeful, organised process. It takes place
under the leadership of the Marxist-Leninist party.
A scientific programme of building communism
has been adopted by the Communist Party of the
Soviet Union. It defines the communist system as
follows: "Communism is a classless social system
with one form of public ownership of the means
of production and full social equality of all
members of society; under it the all-round devel¬
opment of people will be accompanied by the
growth of the productive forces through con¬
tinuous progress in science and technology; all the
springs of co-operative wealth will flow more
abundantly, and the great principle of 'from each
according to his ability, to each according to his

48
needs' will be implemented. Communism is a
highly organised society of free, socially conscious
working people in which public self-government
will be established, a society in which labour for
the good of society will become the prime vital
requirement of everyone, a necessity recognised
by one and all, and the ability of each person will
be employed to the greatest benefit of the people."*
Inasmuch as society is founded on the produc¬
tion of material values, the chief task in building
communism is to create the material and technical
basis for it. The next task in importance is to
shape communist social relations, and the third
is to educate the man of communist society. These
tasks are closely interrelated and are tackled
simultaneously.
The creation of the material and technical basis
of communism presupposes the country's complete
electrification, the comprehensive mechanisation
and automation of production, the broad applica¬
tion of chemistry in the economy, the development
of new materials, the close co-operation between
science and production, the efficient utilisation of
all available resources, a high cultural and
technical level of the people and an unprecedented
growth of labour productivity.
Furthermore, it presupposes a technical revolu¬
tion in agriculture, where, for its productivity,
conditions and nature, labour will become a
variety of industrial labour. This is the key to the

* The Road to Communism, p. 509.

4-93 49
development of collective-farm ownership right
up to the stage of its fusion with public ownership.
Mechanisation and automation of production
makes labour more creative. That is the founda¬
tion for bringing mental and physical labour closer
together and erasing the distinction between them.
Under communism labour will cease being
solely a duty. It will also be a requirement and a
source of joy. This will benefit society tremen¬
dously and serve as a mighty factor of further
social progress.
The complete eradication of social, economic
and cultural distinctions between town and country
and the merging of the two forms of socialist
ownership into a single communist ownership
will bring about the disappearance of classes: of
the working class and peasants. For its cultural
and technical level physical labour will rise to
the level of mental labour. Complete social equality
of all members of society will be achieved, and
town and country will have similar working and
living conditions.
With the growth of the productive forces and
the increase in the production of material and
cultural wealth, the distribution of material values
will be improved on the basis of the development
of public ownership. Communism will give people
not only the quantity of material blessings needed
to ensure abundance, but will also introduce a
new form of distribution, in accordance with the
principle: "from each according to his ability, to
each according to his needs". In other words.

50
society will provide all its members with every¬
thing they require. This form of distribution will
create the best conditions for developing the
principal productive force, man himself, and
thereby secure a further rapid growth of social
production. Marxism-Leninism rejects the view
that the growth of the people's prosperity, that
abundance leads to a rejuvenation of the morals
and manners of bourgeois society.
With the development of the productive forces,
society will satisfy the material requirements of all
its members ever more fully, and knowledge, art
and other cultural requirements will play an ever¬
growing role in people's lives. Improved technology
will give people more leisure time, while universal
education will provide them with greater
opportunities for all-sided development and
creative activity.
Harmony between the social and the personal,
between labour and enjoyment, between progress
and happiness is the future that today springs from
socialism, which is being built by the daily labour
of hundreds of millions of people.
Communism is the highest social system. All
subsequent social development will proceed under
communism, which offers everything that man
needs for his growth. Moreover, communism is
called upon to fulfil the historic mission of deliver¬
ing mankind from social inequality, from every
kind of oppression and exploitation, from the
horrors of war, and establish Peace, Labour,
Freedom, Equality and Happiness on earth.

4» 51
 From this it follows that communism is the
system that all nations dream of, for it holds the
promise of the happiness that all people desire,
A stirring example for all nations is the develop¬
ment of the Soviet Union, which, as the first
country to complete the building of socialism, is
confidently blazing the road to communism. The
Soviet Union's achievements in the building of
communism are benefiting all nations that are
working for a happy future. They are especially
important to the developing countries, which are
receiving support and disinterested aid from their
staunch friend, the U,S,S.R„ and other socialist
countries.
 Chapter IV

SOCIAL CLASSES
AND THE CLASS STRUGGLE

What are social classes!

From the moment the slave-owning system came

into being human society has consisted of large
groups of people that substantially differ from
each other. Private ownership of the means of
production provided the economic basis for
society's division into opposing classes, into ruling
and oppressed classes, into exploiters and the
exploited. The nature of ownership also determines
the mode of receiving profits and the size of these
profits. The primary element of class distinction is
the relation to the means of production. All other
elements are derivatives. Furthermore, classes
differ by their way and conditions of life, their
interests and purposes, their political views and
morals. That is why it is justifiably said that
people living in cabins think differently from those
who live in palaces.
The Marxist approach to an understanding of
the key elements of the division of society into
classes is based on a materialist understanding of
the processes and phenomena of social develop¬
ment.

53
 Lenin defined classes as "large groups of people
differing from each other by the place they occupy
in a historically determined system of social
production, by their relation (in most cases fixed
and formulated in law) to the means of produc¬
tion, by their role in the social organisation of
labour, and, consequently, by the dimensions and
mode of acquiring the share of social wealth of
which they dispose".*
What causes society to split up into classes?
There were no classes in tribal society. They
appeared in the period when it disintegrated. The
development of the productive forces was the
general cause for society's stratification into
classes. As we have already noted, at a certain
period of their history people began to produce
more than they could immediately consume. That
gave some people the economic possibility of liv¬
ing at the expense of the labour of others. The
main reason for the appearance of classes was,
therefore, the materialisation of private ownership
of the means of production.
The origin of classes is closely linked up with
the appearance and development of the social
division of labour. The first large-scale division
of labour took place when tribes of herders
emerged from the general mass of tribes. This gave
rise to exchanges between herders and tillers of
the soil and furthered the growth of social wealth
and the class stratification of people. The second

* tenin, SelecLed Works, Vol. 3, p. 248.

54
 major division was effected when handicrafts were
separated from agriculture. This was an even
greater stimulus to the development of exchanges
and deepened the economic inequality of people.
The next division of labour took place when
mental labour was separated from physical labour.
Mental labour became the monopoly of the ruling
classes, who seized control over production, state
administration, the practice of religious cults,
science, art, philosophy, and so forth, while
physical labour became the lot of the overwhelm¬
ing majority of exploited people.
Social classes are subdivided into primary and
secondary.
The primary classes are those that have been
brought to life by a given mode of production and
which are the bearers of that mode. In slave¬
owning society, the slaves and slave-owners were
the primary classes; in feudal society-the feudal
lords and serfs; in bourgeois society-the
capitalists and the workers. Consequently, the
primary classes are those that own the means of
production and those that do not own property
but compi’ise the main mass of the exploited. The
relations between these classes are always hostile
and antagonistic, and mirror the basic forms of
exploitation and enslavement.
Slavery was the first form of exploitation in
human history. Then followed serfdom under
feudalism and hired labour in bourgeois society.
These three historical forms of enslavement are
the individual features of the three class systems.

55
They differ from each other by the nature of
exploitation and by the position occupied in
society by the direct producer of material values.
For example, in bourgeois society the worker has
no means of production and in order not to die
of starvation he is compelled to sell his labour to
the capitalist in the same way as commodities are
sold in the market. The capitalist who buys a
worker's labour, exploits that worker, i.e., he
appropriates his labour.
In addition to primary classes, exploiter society
has other, secondary classes. For example, in the
ancient world in addition to slave-owners and
slaves there were petty farmers and artisans.
Capitalist society likewise has primary and
secondary classes. Landowners, for example, are a
secondary class. True, landed estates have been
abolished in some countries, but in others,
say Germany, landowner economy gradually
developed into capitalist economy, and the
landowner class became an agrarian bourgeoisie.
In less developed countries, tsarist Russia, for
example, where there were extensive survivals of
feudalism, the landowners continued to exist as a
class by themselves. At present this class is a
considerable force in dependent countries. Other
secondary classes of capitalist society include the
petty bourgeoisie, in particular, the peasantry.
As proprietors, the petty bourgeoisie tend to
side with the big bourgeoisie, but since they live
by their own labour and are exploited by the big
bourgeoisie they side with the workers. This dual

56
position explains their vacillation in the struggle
between classes. The development of capitalism
brings about the ruin of the peasants, artisans and
other petty-bourgeois strata, who split up into a
numerically small capitalist upper crust and a
mass of proletarians and semi-proletarians.
In the developed capitalist countries the
peasants are being increasingly exploited by the
monopolies and banks. The growth of monopoly
capitalism and its development into state-monop¬
oly capitalism leads to the concentration of
wealth in the hands of a tiny minority.
There has been a considerable numerical reduc¬
tion of the bourgeoisie in capitalist countries in
the past few decades, while its wealth and power
have increased. A monopolist clique, whose
interests clash with not only those of the working
people, but even with those of a section of the
middle and petty bourgeoisie, has emerged from
the bourgeoisie. The ruin and ousting of the
peasants, artisans, handicraftsmen, small shop¬
keepers, and so forth is continuing, with the result
that the number of people hiring out their labour
is increasing.

Class struggle In society

Ever since classes appeared, the overwhelming

majority of mankind has been waging a struggle
against enslavers. The resistance of the working
people to oppression and exploitation is a great

57
motive force of history. Peasant uprisings and
wars undermined the foundations of feudalism.
The history of capitalist society is a history of a
determined struggle of the working class against
the bourgeoisie. The ruthless exploitation of
colonial and dependent countries by the imperial¬
ists called forth powerful national liberation
movements.
In the course of social development the class
struggle acquired various forms and differed in
intensity. People began to be aware of it in the
remote past. We have descriptions of the class
struggle by antique philosophers and by historians
of the period of the Renaissance. That is only
natural because the life of society cannot be
portrayed without showing one of its essential
aspects. However, Marx and Engels were the first
to show that the class struggle is governed by
definite laws.
It stems from the antagonistic contradictions
between the exploiters and the exploited. The
very position occupied in society by the oppressed
classes, the tyranny of the oppressors, drives these
classes towards a revolutionary struggle. A class
struggle also takes place in cases when the class
concerned is still not conscious of its vital
interests. In such cases, the struggle is sponta¬
neous. When a class begins to understand its vital
interests it wages a conscious struggle.
Of all the classes opposing the bourgeoisie, the
proletariat is the most class conscious. It is linked
up with large-scale production, which is the

58
 advanced form of social economy. The working
conditions at big enterprises, where large numbers
of workers are concentrated, organise and
discipline them, educate them in a spirit of pro¬
letarian solidarity, and make them more capable
than any other class of engaging in conscious
activity. By taking part in strikes, the workers
come to realise that unity and ability to initiate
organised action are mighty weapons in the
struggle against their class enemy.
Compared with preceding oppressed classes, the
proletariat is able to unite not only on a national
but also international scale: its struggle embraces
the whole world. Moreover, the proletariat is
the most organised of all working classes. Its
class interests coincide with those of all working
people seeking delivery from bourgeois oppres¬
sion. This creates the possibility for a durable
alliance between the proletariat and other working
people.
In order to defend its own interests, each class
strives to seize power. To this end it sets up a
party, which champions its interests and directs its
class struggle, in particular, its struggle for power,
for state leadership of the whole of society.
The appearance of political parties reflects the
high level of development reached by the class
struggle. "In a society based upon class divisions,
the struggle between the hostile classes is bound,
at a certain stage of its development, to become
a political struggle. The most purposeful, most
comprehensive and specific expression of the

59
political struggle of classes is the struggle of
parties."*
The ideologists of the bourgeoisie portray their
political parties as being above-class, as represent¬
ative of the whole people, as being called upon to
reconcile the interests of hostile classes. They
maintain that affiliation to one party or another
is of no consequence to any given class, that
parties represent the family, traditions and reli¬
gion. To substantiate this idea they refer to the
bourgeois multiparty system. 'However, it is quite
obvious to any politically conscious person that
there is no fundamental difference between the two
main parties in, say, the United States of America,
not only because they are based on the same
religious, cultural, geographic, family and other
traditions, but also because the ideology and policy
of both champion the interests of one and the same
ruling class, the bourgeoisie, the interests of
monopoly capital.
In contrast to bourgeois parties, Marxist parties
openly declare their class nature: they are parties
of the working class and represent the interests of
all working people, and their aims conform with
progressive social development.
In the course of the class struggle the proletariat
sets up trade unions, co-operatives and various
educational organisations to uphold its interests.
However, the political party is the highest form
of proletarian organisation.

* Lenin, Collected Works, Vol, 10, p. 79.

60
 The growth of the revolutionary working-
class movement in the capitalist countries is
accompanied by the establishment of many
workers' parties that differently express the
economic, political and ideological interests of the
proletariat. The reason for this is that as capitalism
develops the working class is constantly
augmented with people from other classes, chiefly
from the petty bourgeoisie of town and country.
In addition, with means derived from monopoly
profits, and the pillage of colonies and dependent
countries, the bourgeoisie bribes the upper section
of the proletariat. This gives rise to the so-called
workers' aristocracy and serves as the foundation
for various trends and deviations in the working
class, as soil for opportunism in its ranks.
The Social-Democratic parties that headed the
working-class movement at the close of the 19th
and beginning of the 20th century proved to be
unable to lead the working class in an assault
against capitalism because opportunist elements
paralysed the militant energy of these parties and
took the path of betrayal of the proletariat and
co-operation with the bourgeoisie. The task of
setting up a party of a new type was posed by
the course of history. Such a party was created
by the great Lenin as the vanguard of the working
class, as the spokesman of its vital interests, of the
interests and aspirations of all working people,
of their revolutionary will. This party led the
peoples of the Soviet Union to the victory of

61
socialism and now directs the full-scale building
of communism.
In the modem capitalist world the class struggle
is steadily mounting, with the working class
coming forward in defence of their economic and
political interests. Developing unevenly, the class
struggle has become acute, for example, in France,
Italy, Japan and the U.S.A., where in 1945-60 the
average annual number of strikes doubled
compared with the pre-war years. A huge strike
struggle flared up in Belgium late in 1960 and
early in 1961. It showed that the disintegration of
the colonial system of imperialism inevitably
exacerbates social contradictions in the metrop¬
olises.
In 1958 strikes involved 27 million workers, and
in 1962 their number rose to over 60 million. The
economic struggle waged today by the proletariat
is distinguished not only by its perseverance, but
also by the fact that it is bound up closer than
ever before with the political struggle, with the
struggle for peace, against the arms race, against
the rise of fascism, for democracy, a struggle which
is part of the struggle for socialism.
Political strikes are a major weapon of the
working class. In 1958 they involved nearly
10 million workers or about 43 per cent of the
people who took part in strikes, in 1959, more
than 23 million or 56 per cent of the strikers, and
in 1960, 41 million or about 76 per cent of the
working people who went on strike.
The working class is aiming its main blow at

62
 the capitalist monopolies, whose eradication is
ardently desired by all the main strata of nations.
An alliance is forged between the working class
and all working people in the course of this
struggle. The proletariat rallies the peasants-
their principal ally-to the struggle against feudal
survivals and domination by the monopolies.
Broad sections of office employees and a con¬
siderable section of the intelligentsia likewise side
with the working class.
In the less developed countries the class struggle
makes common cause with the struggle for
national liberation. Various classes form a united
front in the national liberation movement, which
is democratic in content. The working class,
however, is the most consistent fighter for the
achievement of all the aims of the national, anti¬
imperialist, democratic revolution. The peasants,
who are vitally interested in agrarian reforms,
and in the abolition of the survivals of feudalism,
as well as other democratic forces, come forward
as allies of the working class.
In the colonial and dependent countries, the
national bourgeoisie that has no ties with
imperialist circles may likewise participate in the
national democratic alliance. Under the condi¬
tions obtaining today, the national bourgeoisie of
these countries is able to wage a struggle against
imperialism and feudalism and, in this sense, plays
a progressive role. But because of its dual nature
it is inclined to come to terms with imperialism
and feudalism.

63
 The masses, on the other hand, are becoming
convinced that the best way to abolish age-old
backwardness and improve the standard of living
is to consummate the anti-imperialist, democratic
revolution, develop and consolidate the national
front based on an alliance of the working class
with the peasants and the patriotically-minded
section of the national bourgeoisie, prepare the
conditions for forming a national democratic state
and go over to the non-capitalist and socialist road
of development.
The great renovating forces of modem times are
the world revolutionary working-class movement,
the world socialist system and the national libera¬
tion movement of the peoples of Asia, Africa and
Latin America. One of the cardinal conditions for
the further triumph of the national liberation
movement is its durable alliance and co-operation
with countries of the world socialist system, which
is the main force in the struggle against imperi¬
alism, and a lasting alliance with the working-
class movement of the capitalist countries. The
basic problem of modem times is that of war and
peace. The successful settlement of that problem
will help to promote the struggle for peace,
democracy, national independence and socialism.
The struggle between the classes is thus the
motive force of history in all exploiter systems.
This struggle reaches its zenith in the period of
social revolutions.

64
The social revolution

In human history there are periods o£ gradual

development and periods marked by a radical
upheaval of the entire social system. The social
revolution, i.e., the collapse of a social system,
brings about a transition to another social system.
It is preceded by more or less long periods of
social development. In the history of Europe, for
example, bourgeois revolutions were preceded by
changes of royal dynasties, wars and palace coup
d'etats: principalities and feudal lords were
continuously quarrelling, making peace and then
again fighting, and all in order to seize an extra
stretch of territory, loot a neighbouring castle,
drive off livestock, avenge an insult, and so on.
But all these events did not change the sub¬
stance of feudalism. Although peasant upris¬
ings broke out from time to time, they were
cruelly suppressed by the ruling classes, who were
able to take advantage of the peasants' lack of
organisation.
Then the epoch of great social upheavals was
ushered in. In the period from the 16th to the
18th century the social system of the leading
capitalist countries underwent fundamental
changes: feudalism was supplanted by capi¬
talism.
The ideologists of the then emergent bour¬
geoisie evolved theories to justify the right of
peoples to accomplish revolutions. Ardent speeches
were made in defence of this right by Robespierre,

5-93 65
Marat and Saint-Just, leaders of the French
revolution of the close of the 18th century.
These ideologists looked into the future when
they called for a revolution against the decayed
feudal system. But when the bourgeoisie came to
power and. the class struggle deepened, the views
of the bourgeois ideologists on the right of peoples
to accomplish revolutions changed radically and
became reactionary.
The ideologists of the moribund bourgeoisie
have turned their backs on the future. Today they
regard revolution as an abnormal phenomenon,
an accident, and so on, claiming that social revolu¬
tions are illegal because their aim is to dethrone
the classes whose interests these ideologists are
defending.
Social revolutions are a historical necessity,
whose roots go deep into society's economic life.
The source of these revolutions is the conflict
between the new productive forces and the old
relations of production.
Revolutions are not made at the whim of
individuals, groups or classes. They take place
when the corresponding objective conditions for
them have matured. In a class society the objective
need for revolutions arises from the fact that the
old relations of production are defended by the
ruling classes with the aid of a whole system of
political, legal and other institutions, principally
with the aid of the state and law. In order that
these barriers may be broken down, the old forces
have to be opposed by new social forces. Inasmuch

66
 as the reactionary class preserves the old relations
of production with the help of state power, the
progressive class must first and foremost seize
political power in order to abolish the old and
consolidate the new relations of production. In
other words, the question of whether the new
relations of production will triumph depends in
the long run on whether the revolutionary class
seizes state power. The question of state power is,
therefore, the basic one of any revolution.
The transition of power from the hands of the
reactionary class to the hands of the progressive
class is effected by a sharp class struggle.
The creative energy of millions of people is
awakened during periods of revolution. In the
course of a social revolution, the people accom¬
plishing it become steeled, rejuvenated and
culturally enriched. Without revolutionaries there
cannot be revolutions. But, in its turn, a revolu¬
tion engenders and trains revolutionaries. People
find in themselves new strength and ability.
The result of all this is that social development
is greatly accelerated. That is why Marx called
revolutions the locomotives of history.
Revolutions differ from each other by their
nature and motive forces. The nature of a revolu¬
tion is determined primarily by the problems that
it is called upon to resolve, the class that comes
to power and becomes the dominant political
force in society, and the relations of production
that are established as a result of it.
The motive forces of a revolution are the social

5* 67
classes that accomplish it, wage a struggle against
reactionary classes that have had their day, and
open the road for the development of new, more
progressive relations of production. One of the
classes accomplishing the revolution becomes its
leader. It carries along with it all the other classes
and social groups that had taken part in the revo¬
lution. The factors determining the motive forces
of a revolution and bringing one class or another
to the fore as its leader are, first and foremost,
the nature of the revolution itself, the specific
conditions under which it is accomplished and
the balance of social forces at the given period.
The epoch of bourgeois revolutions was a period
of social development when feudalism collapsed
and capitalism was established. As a result of the
bourgeois revolution, state power passed from the
feudal lords, landowners and nobility to the hands
of the bourgeoisie or to a coalition of capitalists
and landowners. "The bourgeois revolution,"
Lenin wrote, "faced only one task-to sweep away,
to cast aside, to destroy all the fetters of the
preceding social order. By fulfilling this, every
bourgeois revolution fulfils all that is required of
it; it accelerates the growth of capitalism."*
The classes engendered by capitalist production-
the bourgeoisie, the urban petty bourgeoisie and
the emergent proletariat-aided by the peasants
accomplish the bourgeois revolution. The bour¬
geoisie plays the leading role and seizes political

• Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 27, p. 89.

68
 power with the help of the peasants, artisans and
urban proletariat.
Special mention must be made of bourgeois-
democratic revolutions, whose feature was, as
Lenin put it, that the majority of the people, the
lowest social strata, rose independently against
oppression and exploitation, and left on the entire
course of these revolutions the imprint of their
demands and of their attempts to build a new
society in place of the old society that was being
destroyed.
The bourgeois revolutions opened the door wide
to the development of the productive forces. After
it had tremendously enhanced the productive
forces capitalism became a formidable barrier to
further social progress. The ever-growing conflict
between the productive forces and the relations of
production acutely confronted mankind with the
task of breaking the capitalist shell that was hold¬
ing up society's natural growth, liberate the
productive forces created by the people and utilise
them for the benefit of the whole of society. The
only way this lofty goal can be achieved is by
accomplishing a socialist revolution.

The socialist revolution

In all preceding revolutions the oppressed

classes were the main assault force, but the fruits
of victory were enjoyed by the new exploiter

69
classes: the people planted the trees, but the fruit
was plucked by the exploiters. The socialist
revolution, however, is free of the contradictions
characterising all preceding revolutions. Its motive
forces are the masses exploited by imperialism. In
a socialist revolution these masses are led by the
working class, whose interests coincide with those
of the vast majority of the people.
This fundamentally distinguishes the socialist
revolution from all preceding social revolutions. It
introduces the most far-reaching changes in the
life of peoples. All that preceding revolutions did
was to change the form of exploitation, but the
socialist revolution roots out exploitation of man
by man. It ushers in the era of classless society.
Preceding revolutions only brought political power
into accord with the obtaining economic relations
that arose within the framework of the old society.
One of the cardinal aims of the socialist revolu¬
tion is to bring about a transition to the new, com¬
munist society, capitalism giving rise only to the
material requisites of the new system.
No preceding revolution witnessed such a
degree of activity by the masses as the socialist
revolution. As the most revolutionary class, the
proletariat headed by the Marxist party gives
leadership to all working people. The main tasks
of the socialist revolution are the seizure of
political power by the working class in alliance
with other working people and the further develop¬
ment and strengthening of this power in the
interests of all working people. The working class

70
 and its allies can carry this task out only by
creating a working people's state.
The need for a socialist revolution was
substantiated by Marx and Engels, teachers of the
proletariat and all working people. But they lived
in the era of ascending capitalism, and on that
basis believed that the socialist revolution can be
triumphant simultaneously in all developed
capitalist countries.
At the close of the 19th and beginning of the
20th century capitalism turned into imperialism.
The conditions for a socialist revolution changed,
and Lenin evolved the theory of revolution for the
new conditions.
The principal proposition of Lenin's theory is
that the socialist revolution can be victorious first
in one country. He proved that under imperialism
the capitalist countries develop unevenly: countries
that had lagged behind caught up with and
overtook the economically advanced countries.
"The development of capitalism," he wrote,
"proceeds extremely unevenly in different
countries. It cannot be otherwise under commodity
production. From this it follows irrefutably that
socialism cannot achieve victory simultaneously
in all countries. It will achieve victory first in one
or several countries, while the others will for
some time remain bourgeois or pre-bourgeois."*
His point of departure was that as a system,
capitalism had matured for a socialist revolution.

* Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 23, p. 79.

71
The revolution could, therefore, be victorious in
one country, not necessarily a highly developed
one, but a country that had reached average
development. In order to ensure the triumph of
the revolution, there had to be an alliance between
the working class and the peasants.
An important condition for the victory of the
socialist revolution is that there must be a Marxist
party capable of leading the masses in a
determined struggle in the period of the exacerba¬
tion of the contradictions of capitalism. The
totality of all these conditions is necessary for
the triumph of the socialist revolution. However,
contrary to what the leaders of the Social-
Democratic parties maintain, it is not at all
indispensable that the working class should form
the majority of a country's population.
Early in the 20th century the centre of the world
revolutionary movement shifted to Russia, which
was focus of all the contradictions of the
imperialist system. At the same time, there were
in Russia all the conditions necessary for the
victory of a socialist revolution. Analysing the
features of the revolutionary working-class
movement under the new historical conditions and,
primarily, the features of the Russian Revolution
of 1905, Lenin arrived at the conclusion that the
proletariat must be the leading force of the
bourgeois-democratic revolution in the period of
imperialism. The proletariat was the class
interested in carrying the revolution through to

72
 the end. It first implements democratic reforms
and then passes to the socialist revolution.
Lenin, thus, formulated the problem of the
growth of the bourgeois-democratic revolution into
a socialist revolution. In Russia the working class
had developed the class struggle to a high level,
and it was headed by a Marxist-Leninist party,
which was armed with an advanced revolutionary
theory and had become steeled in class struggles.
Guided by Lenin's theory of the socialist revolu¬
tion, the Communist Party merged the struggle of
the working class for socialism, the mass move¬
ment for peace, the peasant struggle for land and
the national liberation movement of the oppressed
peoples of Russia into a single revolutionary
torrent and directed these forces towards the
overthrow of capitalism. The supremacy of the
landowners and capitalists crumbled. The work¬
ing class, in alliance with the poorest sections of
the peasants, seized political power and established
the Soviet socialist state.
The historical significance and scientific depth
of Lenin's theory of revolution were confirmed
in practice not only by the October Revolution but
by all subsequent socialist revolutions. This theory
brilliantly illumines the practice of the working
people's coming battles for their liberation from
capitalist oppression.
The defeat of German nazism and Japanese
militarism m the Second World War, in which the
Soviet Union played the decisive role, created
favourable conditions for overthrowing the rule

73
of the capitalists and landowners by the peoples
of a number of countries in Europe and Asia.
There was a whole series of people's democratic
revolutions, i.e., people's anti-imperialist and
anti-feudal revolutions, that were led by the work¬
ing class in alliance with the peasants. These
revolutions resulted in the formation of united
people's fronts: the revolutions were joined by
intellectuals and the patriotic sections of the petty
and middle bourgeoisie.
The building of socialism in the U.S.S.R. was
of inestimable importance in ensuring the suc¬
cessful outcome of these revolutions.

The socialist revolution

and the national liberation movement

In addition to socialist and people's democratic

revolutions, tremendous importance attaches in
the period of imperialism to national liberation
revolutions, which spring from the national libera¬
tion movement and are aimed at eradicating
foreign domination and winning national independ¬
ence, ending national and colonial oppression
and exploitation and setting up a national state.
The world is living through an epoch of revolu¬
tion. The national liberation movement is part
and parcel of the world revolutionary process and
is a mighty force coming forward against impe¬
rialism. The great slogan of "Workers of all
countries, unite!", put forward by Marx and

74
 Engels, has become the fighting banner of the
world working class. Under the new conditions
that arose after the victory of the Great October
Revolution, Lenin laid special emphasis on the
inseparable link between the socialist revolution
and the national liberation movement. The words
"Workers of all countries, unite!" have been and
remain the paramount slogan of the struggle for
the victory of the world revolution. At the same
time, its content has broadened out. Lenin
approved the slogan "Workers of all countries and
oppressed peoples, unite!" This slogan underlines
the leading role of the working class and the
increased significance of the national liberation
movement. Throughout the world the fraternal
Marxist parties have generalised the experience of
the world revolutionary movement and have
worked out a profoundly scientific characteristic
of the modern epoch. "The modern epoch," they
declared, "whose main content is the transition
from capitalism to socialism, is an epoch of
struggle between two opposing social systems, an
epoch of socialist and national liberation revolu¬
tions, an epoch of the downfall of imperialism and
the abolition of the colonial system, an epoch of
transition to the road of socialism by increasing
numbers of peoples, an epoch of the triumph of
socialism and communism on a world scale."
The nature and content of the world revolu¬
tionary process in the modern epoch is determined
by the merging into a single torrent of the struggle
against imperialism of the peoples building

75
socialism and communism, the revolutionary
movement of the working class in the capitalist
countries and the national liberation struggle of
the oppressed peoples. The decisive role in this
alliance of anti-imperialist, revolutionary forces is
played by the world working class and its
principal creation, the world system of socialism,
which exerts the main influence on the development
of the socialist revolution by force of example,
primarily by force of its economic progress.
In face of these achievements and triumphs, the
working people in the capitalist countries and in
the countries that have liberated themselves from
capitalism, say: "Socialism is proving by deeds
that it is better than capitalism. It is worth fighting
for that system." Today socialism is winning the
hearts and minds of all nations not only for its
ideas and principles but chiefly for its great and
successful accomplishments, by the example that
it is setting. A socialist revolution may be achieved
only as a result of the development of the class
struggle within a country. Its form and ways are
determined by the specific conditions obtaining in
the given country and by the international
situation.
In the modern epoch the capitalist system has,
as a whole, matured for a socialist revolution. But
in each country the possibility for starting a
revolution depends on a number of conditions that
determine a revolutionary situation. Leninism
rejects the idea of "pushing" revolutions in other
countries with the assistance of "revolutionary

76
 wars". It opposes the "export" of revolution in the
same way that it opposes the "export" of counter¬
revolution. The correctness of this line has been
confirmed by the experience of revolution. But
these conclusions, drawn from experience, are
opposed by the views of the "Left" opportunists.
The danger of their views becomes enormous in
view of the existence of thermonuclear weapons.
The exponents of the idea of "pushing" revolutions
with "revolutionary wars" do not see the
tremendous possibilities of the socialist states to
influence the revolutionary-minded people of other
countries by their economic and cultural develop¬
ment and by their better organisation of society.
Revising the Leninist teaching on the revolutionary
situation, some dogmatists accuse the Communist
Parties of the capitalist countries of reformism, on
the grounds that having soberly assessed the
situation they do not call for the accomplishment
of a revolution where the conditions necessary for
it have not ripened. A premature call for an armed
uprising in a country where a revolutionary
situation does not exist would doom the working
class to failure. The political harm of this line is
that it isolates the Communist Party and causes
the working class to lose its allies in the struggle
against monopoly domination, against capitalism.
Marxism-Leninism has never tied up the
maturing of a revolutionary situation with an
imperialist war. The struggle for peace is of
tremendous revolutionary significance. Active
participation in the struggle for peace is a major

77
means of rallying the working class and all
working people, of making them appreciate the
need for revolutionary struggle.
Furthermore, the very course of the revolution,
its development, depending on concrete conditions,
is characterised by peaceful and non-peaceful
forms of struggle. Depending upon concrete
conditions and, primarily, on the degree of
organisation and political consciousness of the
working class and its allies, on the degree of
resistance put up by the reactionary classes, a
revolution may be peaceful or non-peaceful. The
possibility of a socialist revolution developing
peacefully does not mean that the working class
and its allies reject the non-peaceful form of
transition to socialism. It would be naive to think,
that torn as it is by internal contradictions,
capitalism will, in its desperation, throw itself
under the wheels of history. If the exploiter
classes use force against the people, the working
class and its allies will be compelled to resort to
the non-peaceful way of seizing power. No matter
how the transition from capitalism to socialism is
effected, it can be accomplished only through a
socialist revolution in various forms. Marxist-
Leninist teaching has nothing in common with the
ideas of the "Left" opportunists, who overestimate
the importance of armed action in the practice
of the revolutionary struggle of the oppressed
classes.

7S
Triumph of socialism
and the uprooting of the exploiter classes

An entire epoch is required for the complete

erasure of classes. The first stage in resolving this
task embraces the period of transition from
capitalism to socialism. This is the period when
the exploiter classes are uprooted and exploitation
of man by man is abolished. First and foremost,
as a result of the socialist revolution, the
landowner class is eliminated and big capitalist
ownership is expropriated. Then the petty
ownership of the peasants and artisans is
transformed through socialist co-operation, which
becomes the foundation for removing the main
class distinctions between workers and peasants.
The soil for class collisions vanishes with the
victory of socialism and the eradication of class
antagonisms within the country. Friendly co¬
operation is established between all the social
groups of socialist society. The class struggle
ceases to be the motive force of social progress.
Under these conditions the class struggle is
spearheaded against the hostile forces of the
capitalist world, who do not cease their sorties
against socialism. The need for a struggle against
the penetration of imperialist agents remains
within the country, as does the need for a struggle
against the ideological influence of the capitalist
world. The struggle against survivals of capitalism
in people's minds is conducted chiefly through
education, but force may be used with regard to

79
the bearers of the most malicious and dangerous
types of morals. However, the main thing with
which the very concept of classes in the old sense
of the word is identified, namely, the possibility
of any single group of people appropriating the
fruits of other people's labour, has been rooted out.
Socialism eradicates oppression of man by
man, which is the chief evil of a class society.
All people work and receive remuneration in
accordance with their work. However, class and
other accompanying distinctions (between town
and country, between physical and mental labour)
have not been abolished completely. As long as
they obtain, no complete equality is possible in
the conditions of work and life. The obliteration
of these distinctions in order to establish a classless
society is therefore one of the key tasks of
communist construction.
Thus, the complete erasure of class distinctions
is linked up with the transition from socialism to
communism. The erasure of class boundaries is a
gradual process that does not require revolutionary
changes. It is effected not through conflict
but through co-operation between classes. The
distinction between the working class, the
peasants and the intelligentsia will be completely
swept away when these sections of society become
workers of a classless, communist society, which
will be devoid of all social differences.

80
 Chapter V

THE STATE
AND ITS ROLE IN SOCIETY

What Is a state!

Various theories have been put forward about

the state and the role that it plays in society. In
particular, this question has been muddled up
by bourgeois ideologists, who attribute some
supernatural, magical force to the state. But none
of them has scientifically answered the question
of the dependence of the state on the economic
system in a society, of the class nature of the
state, of the laws governing its emergence and
development, and of its functions in social life.
The essence of the state was scientifically explained
by Marx, Engels and Lenin.
In a society rent by class antagonisms, the state
is a vehicle of political power; it is a political
organisation that maintains the supremacy of one
class over the others.
The state, as such, has not been in existence
always. It is a product of human development.
Neither private ownership nor classes existed in
the epoch of the primitive-communal system and
there was no necessity for a special organ of
power separated from the people. Social functions

6-93 81
were carried out by all adults. This was, in fact,
self-administration. The commune or clan was
headed by an elective elder. The prestige of
elders and tribal chiefs rested on personal qualities
such as experience, courage and wisdom. But
the situation changed when private ownership
emerged. Economic inequality caused society to
split up into opposing classes. This ruled out all
possibility for joint decisions on the affairs of
society, because each class had its own special
interests. Besides, the life of society became more
complex. Only one thing was missing, namely,
"an institution that would perpetuate not only the
newly rising class division of society but also the
right of the possessing class to exploit the non¬
possessing classes and the rule of the former over
the latter. And this institution arrived."*
The economic subordination of the working
people was ensured primarily by the ruling classes
obtaining private ownership of the means of
production. But in itself the economic dependence
of the working people is far from being enough
to enable a social system based on exploitation
to exist for a long time. Oppressed people always
comprise the overwhelming majority of any
nation, and the oppressors constitute an insignifi¬
cant minority. A powerful political weapon is
required to enable a tiny handful of rich people
to keep hundreds of thousands and millions of
people in subordination. This weapon is the state.

^ Marx, Engels, Selected Works, Vol. II, p. 263.

82
 In all class social systems, the state is a political
organisation of the economically dominant class,
a means of the class domination of the exploiters
over the exploited, a machine of the dictatorship
of the ruling class, "The state," Lenin wrote, "is
a machine for maintaining the rule of one class
over another."*
As a weapon of political power in class society,
the state has a number of features. It exercises
supreme power through definite organs. In class
societies, the ruling class controls the government,
the army, the judiciary, the police, and so forth.
The state has always had an apparatus standing
over society and consisting of a group of people
engaged chiefly in administration. In an exploiter
state, the state apparatus becomes ramified and
increasingly centralised, which inevitably enhances
the role of the bureaucracy, i.e., of professional
officials isolated from the masses and standing
above them.
The class substance of a state is manifested in
its principal functions, i.e., in the main aims of its
activity.
The state of the exploiter classes performs its
cardinal internal function, that of keeping the
working people in check, by force and also by
cultural and ideological indoctrination. In the
modern bourgeois state, the weapons for ideologi¬
cally indoctrinating the working people are the
Church, the school and a large propaganda

• Lenin, Selected Works, Vol. 3, p. 284.

6* 83
 machine; the bourgeois press, radio, cinema,
television, theatre and literature.
The external function is characterised by the
relations between the given state and other states
and is expressed in foreign policy and diplomacy.
This function stems from and is a continuation of
the internal function. Thus, the expansionist and
aggressive foreign policy of modern imperialism
supplements its internal policy of curbing
the working people with the purpose of enhanc¬
ing its supremacy and obtaining the maximum
profit.
The nature of a state is determined by the ruling
class and by its economic foundation. Thus, the
type of state expresses its class substance while
its form mirrors the organisation of power and
administration. History knows of three basic types
of exploiter states: slave-owning, feudal and
bourgeois.
For example, as a type, the bourgeois state is a
dictatorship of the bourgeoisie. This dictatorship
perpetuates capitalist ownership of the means of
production and the exploitation of the proletariat
and all other working people.
The socialist state, on the other hand, is a
fundamentally new and higher type of state. While
all preceding types of states were machines for the
oppression of the working people, machines
maintaining the rule of the minority over the
majority, the socialist state is a machine for
the eradication of exploitation of man by man,
for the building of a socialist society, and it is

84
 administered by the working class and all other
working people.
The form of state differs depending on whether
supreme power is wielded by one man or officially
belongs to an elective organ. Here we differentiate
between monarchist and republican forms of
administration. In a monarchy power is con¬
centrated in the hands of one man (a king or
emperor) and is usually acquired by succession.
In a republic power is held by elective organs. In
the course of history there have been different
forms of monarchies and republics.
When we speak of the form of a state we must
have in mind not only the form of administration
but also the political regime, which may be
democratic or non-democratic.
To the working people it is not a matter of
indifference whether the capitalist state exists in
the form of a bourgeois democracy or a fascist
dictatorship. The fascist dictatorship suppresses
all organisations of the working class and all other
working people. The bourgeois democratic republic
may be and is utilised by the working class and
its allies to organise its forces. Under imperialism
the working people headed by the working class
wage a struggle for the extension of democracy.
Bourgeois ideologists frequently juggle with the
word democracy, maintaining that in countries
where democracy exists the state ceases to
represent any single class and expresses the
interests of the whole of society. Indeed, the word
democracy means government by the people. But

85
in exploiter society there cannot be a genuine
people's government.
Imperialism has caused the bourgeois state to
veer sharply towards reaction. Imperialism, Lenin
said, signifies reaction along all lines, chiefly along
the political line, along the line of government.
The constitutions of the bourgeois states
proclaim many freedoms and rights for all citizens:
universal suffrage, free elections, freedom of
speech, the press, and so forth. But these are only
high-sounding phrases that hide reality. What does
this freedom mean to the unemployed or to old
folks deprived of the means of subsistence? What
equality can there be between the rich and the
poor, between the well-fed and the hungry? On
this score Lenin wrote: "Democracy for an
insignificant minority, democracy for the rich—
that is the democracy of capitalist society."*
Freedom that is a luxury and designed only for the
rich is worth nothing. Bourgeois democracy is a
fraud by means of which slavery is given the
appearance of freedom.
Capitalism is a monstrous pyramid of social
inequality. At its apex is a handful of industrial
and financial moguls. Like the nobility of the
period of the decline of the Roman Empire they
roll in luxury and have a surfeit of everything.
At the same time, hundreds of millions of people,
forming the foundation of this pyramid, are
doomed to privation and oppression.

* Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 25, p. 460.

86
 The overwhelming percentage of voters consists
of working people. But are they represented in
parliament? In the U.S.A., for example, there are
more than 51 million workers, employees and
working farmers. But is there a single worker or
small farmer in Congress?
Monopoly despotism pervades the whole of
social life in the capitalist countries.

The socialist state

The socialist revolution in Russia and in a

number of other countries of Europe, Asia and
America brought into being a new type of state,
a state of the dictatorship of the proletariat. It
differs fundamentally from the exploiter types of
states.
In the proletarian state the government is of
and by the people led by the working class. It is
set up as a result of the socialist revolution and
its goal is the building of socialism. The working
class enters into an alliance with the peasants and
other democratic sections of society. This govern¬
ment is a dictatorship: while giving effect to broad
democracy for the working people, it uses force,
when necessary, to crush the resistance of the
exploiter classes and extinguish the activity of
hostile elements.
As the government of the majority, the dictator¬
ship of the proletariat is a democratic, socialist
type of republic: power is wielded by the working

87
people for the working people. It is a •democratic
dictatorship, serving as a means of reorganising
social relations in the interests of all the working
people.
This state has the historical mission of crushing
the resistance of the overthrown exploiter classes
and building socialism.
In the economic field the dictatorship of the
proletariat supplants private ownership of the
implements and means of production by public
ownership and organises planned social production
in order to raise the standard of living and
promote the all-sided development of the people.
In the sphere of social relations it abolishes the
exploiter classes and the possibility of exploitation
of man by man, making all people workers of
socialist society and placing the achievements of
socialist culture at their disposal.
In the political sphere the socialist state
grows stronger by expanding its social basis,
consolidating the alliance between the workers
and the peasants, drawing ever larger numbers of
people into the administration of public affairs
and furthering the all-sided development of social¬
ist democracy.
The dictatorship of the proletariat is the chief
vehicle for the building of socialism. But it is a
transient phenomenon, a means of achieving a
definite goal: the crushing of the resistance of the
overthrown exploiters and the building of socialism.
Lenin emphasised that the purpose of the
dictatorship of the proletariat is to create socialism.

88
 For that reason he spoke of the period of the
dictatorship of the proletariat as of a period of
transition from capitalism to socialism and not
of its preservation until the highest phase
of communism is achieved as some people
erroneously think. It is wrong to speak of the
dictatorship of the proletariat as of the last
historical form of state. The experience of building
a new life in the Soviet Union has shown that with
the complete and final victory of socialism and
with the country's embarkation upon the period
of full-scale building of communism, the
dictatorship of the proletariat has, from the
standpoint of domestic tasks, ceased to be
necessary because exploiter classes no longer exist
in the U.S.S.R. and there is nobody to crush. This
means that the dictatorship of the proletariat has
fulfilled its mission, that it has ensured the
complete and final victory of socialism and
society's transition to the full-scale building of
communism. It has become a state of the whole
people, i,e., a state that is not a dictatorship of any
one class, but one that expresses the interests and
will of the whole people. The state of the whole
people has now become a reality. It rests on
friendly classes-the workers and the peasants, and
the socialist intelligentsia. This state is a vehicle
for the building of communist society, a task that
does not require a dictatorship of the proletariat.
It is a task that is fulfilled by the socialist state
of the whole people. Why, it may be asked, is the
state preserved at all? The reason for this is that

89
as long as we are not in a position to go over to
the communist principle of labour and distribution,
there must be control over the measure of labour
and the measure of consumption. This control can
be implemented only by the socialist state.
Furthermore, the state shoulders tremendous tasks
in the regulation of ramified socialist production
and in ensuring labour discipline and public law
and order. A state of the whole people is also
needed to fulfil a number of extremely important
tasks stemming from the internationalist duty of
the socialist countries to the working people of the
whole world: co-operation in the world socialist
system of economy; the rendering of aid to peoples
fighting for national independence; peaceful
coexistence with all non-socialist countries in order
to secure lasting peace.
In the intricate situation arising from world
tension and aggressive intrigues of the imperialist
powers, the socialist state requires a powerful
army equipped with the latest weapons and able
to guard the peaceful labour of the peoples. It
also requires organs of state security that can
neutralise the activities of imperialist secret
services against the socialist countries,
A feature of the state of the whole people is that
it promotes the over-all development and improve¬
ment of people's socialist democracy. The building
of communism embraces all aspects of the life of
socialist society: the development of the productive
forces, the production and distribution of material
and cultural values, the improvement of social

90
relations, scientific and technical progress, ideology
and morals, art, the reorganisation of life, the rise
of the standard of living and the growth of culture.
The need to carry out all these historic tasks
sharply enhances the role of the Party and of all
mass organisations-Soviets, trade unions, the
Y.C.L. and co-operatives. All the people directly
participate in the administration of the state and
of public affairs.
The direct expression of the will of the people
in the settlement of problems of state importance
is a form in which the democracy of the state of the
whole people manifests itself on an ever-growing
scale. This is done through nation-wide discussions.
The drafts of all major laws are submitted to the
people for discussion. In future, these democratic
measures will be broadened out and important
laws will be adopted by referendum.
What is the historical destiny of the state? We
know that the state came into being, naturally, as
a result of definite conditions, together with social
classes. It will leave the scene of history just as
naturally. But its withering away cannot be
represented as the simple windup of state
administration, as the falling away of one of its
organs after another. Having become a state of
the whole people, the socialist state is developing
into communist public self-administration. Conse¬
quently, the withering away of the state is a
gradual and prolonged process. Communism must
be established before the state can wither away.
The economic requisites for this include a level

91
of development of the productive forces under
which people's growing material and cultural
requirements can be fully satisfied, thus making it
unnecessary to control the measure of labour and
the measure of consumption. In the social field the
distinctions between classes, as well as between
town and country and between mental and
physical labour, must be erased. In the sphere of
ideology there must be a high level of culture and
political consciousness, all survivals of the past in
people's minds must be surmounted and communist
morals must reign supreme. These are the basic
internal requisites. The external requisites include:
the complete and final triumph of socialism and
communism in the world and the elimination of the
threat of military attack by imperialist powers.
Communist society will not have public power
as represented by a special section of people
engaged solely in administration. However, the
withering away of the socialist state, a process that
has begun in the U.S.S.R., must not be pictured as
the reduction of the state to nothing.
Communism signifies a highly organised and
harmonious association of people distinguished by
their communist awareness of public duty and
discipline.
There will be some form of authority and
subordination in communist society as well, where
the need for the planned organisation of a highly
developed all-round economy and culture will be
preserved. A complex social organism like
communist society will be unable to do without

92
 improved leadership of economic and cultural
affairs, the training and upbringing of the rising
generation, the organisation of labour and
consumption. From this it follows that there will
be a measure of authority under communism, but
this authority will not be political, i.e., the
organisation and leadership of economic and
cultural life will not require political power (and
the accompanying measures of compulsion). These
tasks will be carried out by communist public self¬
administration.
The judiciary will wither away together with
the state. Naturally, this does not mean that under
communism people will live without any sort of
rules. They will have standards governing the
communist way of life, and adherence to these
standards will become a requirement and a habit.
Although civic consciousness will be on a high
level, this will, evidently, not preclude certain
personal conflicts and transgressions against
public law and order. But these conflicts and
transgressions will be settled through influence
brought to bear by society.
Communist public self-administration will
operate publicly and, an important point, there
will be a high level of civic activity and all people
will take a deep interest in public affairs.
In the present epoch new, independent countries
have appeared on the ruins of colonialism. Some
of them have already embarked upon the rejuvena¬
tion of their national economy and culture. By
their character some of the new states are national

93
democracies, i.e., states that consistently uphold
their political and economic independence against
transgressions by imperialism and new forms of
colonialism; states in which the people enjoy
broad democratic rights and freedoms and are
ensured with participation in shaping and imple¬
menting state policy. Given favourable conditions,
the national democracies will in future become
socialist states, and through the building of social¬
ism they will surmount the economic and cultural
backwardness inherited from the period of
colonial rule, raise their standard of living and
join the ranks of advanced, industrially developed
socialist countries.
 Chapter VI

HISTORICAL FORMS
OF HUMAN COMMUNITY

Mankind has always had some form of com¬

munity.
The first of these, which superseded the
primitive herd, was clan organisation, which we
have already mentioned. The clan was a group
of people united by bonds of kinship, collective
labour, joint defence of common interests, same
language, moral standards and traditions. An
association of several clans comprised a tribe,
which had its own territory. Each tribe protected
the integrity of its territory. Relatively small units,
the tribes consisted of hundreds or thousands of
people.
The formation of tribal leagues, accompanied by
increased inter-tribal economic and cultural
exchanges, military clashes, migrations caused by
the growth of population density, the institution
of private ownership and the rise of classes, led
to the gradual intermixing of tribes, to the replace¬
ment of ties of kinship by territorial bonds and
to the appearance of a new form of community,
the nationality.

95
Nationality and nation

Usually, nationalities were formed of several

tribes that had the same or nearly the same origin
and language. For example, the Polish nationality
was formed of the Polyane, Wislyane and some
other Slavic tribes; the German nationality of
Schwabs, Bavarians and other Germanic tribes.
Nationalities were also formed by tribes speaking
different languages but which had intermingled
as a result of the conquest of some tribes by others.
For instance the French nationality took shape
through the intermingling of Roman colonists and
Gallic and Germanic tribes: Franks, West Goths,
Burgundians, and so forth. In the process of the
formation of a nationality and as the bonds
between its separate units grew stronger, the
language of one of the tribes (usually the largest
and the most developed) was adopted as the
language of the nationality, while the other tribal
languages were reduced to dialects or disappeared
altogether. A nationality is a language, territorial,
economic and cultural community of people which
took shape on the basis of the slave-owning and
feudal mode of production.
Nationalities were consolidated by the formation
of states. For example, in the period of feudalism
the centralised states of Eastern Europe each
consisted of several nationalities. The leading
role in these states was played by the nationalities
that had reached the highest development political¬
ly and economically.

96
 The development of capitalist relations led to
a further growth of economic and cultural
exchanges, gave rise to a national market,
abolished economic dismemberment and joined
the various units of a given nationality into a
single national whole.
Nationalities became nations. What are nations?
Lenin answered this question: "Nations are an
inevitable product, an inevitable form, in the
bourgeois epoch of social development."* They
are a community of people that emerges in the
period of the formation of capitalism on the basis
of a community of economy, territory, language,
certain features of psychology, manners and
culture. In contrast to a nationality, a nation is a
more stable community of people, and this gives
it deep-rooted economic ties. Nations were shaped
by kindred tribes and nationalities and also by
non-kindred tribes, races and nationalities. The
Russian nation, for example, emerged from the
Russian nationality, which, in its turn, was formed
by the East Slavic tribes that were kin by origin
and language. At the same time, it embraced
many elements of the surrounding Western and
Southern Slavs, Germanic, Ugro-Finnish and other
nationalities, and so on.
Features of the historical past, the formation
and development of a nation, its economic system,
culture, geographic and historical surroundings,
way of life and traditions leave an imprint on

• Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 21, p. 72.

7-93 97
the given nation's culture and give it its national
character. In addition to their own special features,
nations have features that unite them. There are
nations speaking the same language or living on
common territory or having much in common in
their history, culture, way of life and psychology
(for example, the British and the North
Americans).

Bourgeois
and socialist nations

There are bourgeois and socialist nations.

A bourgeois nation is not a homogeneous unit.
The bourgeoisie and the proletariat have their
own class interests. By its nature the proletariat
is internationalist in spite of being part of a
nation.
Lenin showed the two conflicting trends in the
development of national relations under capitalism.
One of these trends is expressed in the activation
of national life and of national movements against
oppressors, in the formation of national states.
The opposing trend manifests itself in the promo¬
tion of relations between nations, in the breaking
down of international barriers and in the forma¬
tion of a single economy and a world market. The
first trend was predominant in the period of
emergent capitalism. Under monopoly rule, the
second trend is carried into effect by force, colonial
plunder and the oppression of the peoples of
98
economically backward countries by stronger
powers. This causes the oppressed peoples to rise
to the struggle against the colonialists and sets
in motion the national liberation movement that
leads to the collapse of the colonial system. The
countries winning liberation base their relations
on principles of peace and friendship.
Marxism-Leninism makes a distinction between
the nationalism of ruling nations (great-power
chauvinism and racism) and the nationalism of
oppressed nations. It unconditionally rejects the
reactionary ideology, which justifies the rule of
one nation over another, and supports the
nationalism of the oppressed nations, inasmuch as
the latter is directed against imperialism and seeks
to establish national independence. As was noted
by Lenin, the bourgeois nationalism of each
oppressed nation contains elements of democ¬
racy aimed against oppression. This democracy
of the oppressed nations must be vigorously
supported.
History shows that the progressive nature of
bourgeois nationalism is transient. It is linked up
with the progressive role played by the national
bourgeoisie in the national liberation movement.
But when the bourgeoisie loses its progressive
nature, its nationalism becomes reactionary.
Therefore, while supporting the struggle of the
oppressed peoples for their liberation, the Marxist-
Leninist parties educate the working people in the
spirit of proletarian internationalism.

!• 99
 The international solidarity of the working
people of all nations, all countries and all con¬
tinents is a powerful force of present-day
progress. The working class and its main creation,
the world system of socialism, stand in the centre
of the modern epoch. That is an earnest of the
success of all modern liberation movements and
the basis for social progress.
A fundamental change takes place in nations
and in national relations with the abolition of
capitalism. The socialist nations develop on the
foundation of public ownership of the means of
production, a foundation which unites and draws
people and nations closer together. They are not
encumbered by class antagonism and their rela¬
tions are based on mutual trust, mutual assistance,
equality and friendship. Two trends become opera¬
tional simultaneously under socialism. They are
the development and the drawing together of
nations. These trends are different from those
obtaining in the capitalist world. Both these trends
are progressive and interrelated. Nations flourish
by drawing closer together, and as they draw
closer together they blossom out-such are the
dialectics of the development of national relations
under socialism.
This is strikingly seen on the example of the
bloom and drawing together of nations in the
U.S.S.R., where all nations, big and small, live in
inviolable friendship, and help and support each
other. A new form of community in which all
nations will voluntarily merge into a single family

100
 will appear only when communism reaches a high
level of development.
As distinct from national features, racial
characteristics are of a biological nature and have
crystallised through long adaptation of the human
organism to definite climatic conditions. Different
nations may belong to one and the same race. On
the other hand, one and the same nation may
consist of people of different races (say Negroes,
Indians and white people in some of the Latin
American countries). Furthermore, no inner bond
exists between the race and language. For
example, in the U.S.A. English is the native
language of the whites and the Negroes. Therefore,
concepts such as the "German race" or the "Anglo-
Saxon race" are meaningless.
The racists make the reactionary claim that the
human races are biologically and psychologically
unequal. They maintain that there are "higher"
and "lower" races. They belittle the intelligence of
the oppressed peoples in order to prove that the
latter require "guidance" by the colonialists.
Modern anthropology gives us grounds to declare
that all races had and have similar biological
opportunities for development. All peoples are
able to create cultural values, and the volume of
their contribution to world culture is determined
not by the colour of their skin or the shape of
their noses but by the features of their historical
development. The blame for the fact that the
peoples of the colonies lag behind other nations
falls squarely on imperialism. There is no doubt

Wl
that within a relatively short period and with the
support of the nations that have forged ahead, the
peoples who have liberated themselves from
colonial slavery will overcome their economic and
cultural backwardness and bring their countries
into the ranks of the advanced countries of the
world.
 Chapter VII

SOCIAL CONSCIOUSNESS
AND ITS FORMS

Concept of social
consciousness

The material conditions of the life of society,

the production of material values, is primary,
and the views of people, their ideas and theories,
are secondary, i.e., they are engendered by the
material conditions of life. People's social con¬
sciousness stems from their way of life. Consequent¬
ly, the source of cultural life must be looked for
not in people's minds but in the material condi¬
tions of their life. Historical materialism gives the
only correct answer to the question of why various
social ideas, views and theories exist at the
different stages of social development, and why
these ideas, views and theories change together
with changes in the conditions of life. Thus, at the
earliest stages of social life, in the epoch of the
primitive community, people's cultural activity
was intertwined directly with the production of
material values. For example, in those times the
dances of women vividly portrayed work linked
up with the gathering of roots, while the dances
of the men mirrored hunting episodes.

103
 Forms of social consciousness such as political
and legal views, philosophy, science and new
forms of art took shape and developed together
with the emergence of class society and the
appearance of the state.
Social life, including cultural activity, became
more complex. In order to understand, say, the
minuet, a French dance, it is no longer enough to
know the economic life of the French people in the
17th-18th century. One has also to take into
account society's class stratification and, therefore,
know the psychology of the French aristocracy.
Thus, social consciousness is the sum total of
political, legal, moral, artistic, philosophical and
religious views, and scientific knowledge existing
in the given society.
The diversity of the forms of social conscious¬
ness is due to the diversity of the reality that man
strives to understand, and to the multiformity of
life itself.
Life changes, and so does social consciousness.
New views and ideas appear and they clash with
old, outworn views and ideas. One of the features
of social consciousness is that it may lag behind
the changes in the conditions of human life but it
may also outstrip these conditions and peep into
mankind's future. For example, the people who
create a new social system have a new outlook on
life, on their relations with each other and on
society. At the same time, some people continue
to cling to old views inherited from the past, to old
habits and traditions. Naturally, these old views

104
 and habits are gradually overcome and replaced
by new views and habits. But that does not happen
mechanically. It is achieved through education,
through active participation in the building of a
new life. For example, the peoples that have freed
themselves from age-old colonial oppression have
become active in building a new life, and in this
struggle for a new, free life they gradually
surmount the old views and habits that were
implanted by the colonialists, and replace them
with the new views and ideas of independent and
free people, who feel they are masters of their
country. These new ideas and views actively
influence life, mobilise people for the struggle
for a new life, inspire them to perform labour feats
and thereby become a mighty force of social
progress.
A definite system of social views and ideas,
upholding the interests of one or another class or
stratum of society is called an ideology.
In a society divided into opposing classes,
ideology is always representative of a class. For
example, bourgeois ideology predominates in
bourgeois society, because the means of produc¬
tion and the power are in the hands of the
bourgeoisie. Present-day bourgeois ideology is
reactionary because it preaches racism, justifies
plunder and money-grubbing and poisons people
with the venom of distrust in the potency of human
intelligence.
Socialist ideology holds undivided sway in
socialist society, because it is founded on public

105
ownership of the means of production, which
rallies and unites people, v/hile the power is in the
hands of the people. In all socialist countries
socialist ideology has achieved marked success in
the struggle against bourgeois ideology, as a
result of which moral, political and ideological
unity has been fashioned in socialist society. The
strength of socialist ideology lies in the fact that
it rests on the principles of Marxism-Leninism, on
proletarian internationalism and friendship among
nations.
It is the most advanced and most progressive
ideology of modern times. It propagates the lofty
ideas of humanism, fraternity and friendship
among nations, peace and happiness on earth. For
that reason it cannot make any compromise with
bourgeois ideology, which preaches piracy and
war. In our epoch, when the peoples are accom¬
plishing the transition from capitalism to
socialism, the role played by socialist ideology;
which unites peoples in the struggle against
imperialism and helps the liberated peoples to
defend their independence and build a new life, is
becoming immeasurably enhanced.
Let us briefly examine the various forms of
social consciousness.

Political views

Political views (or political ideology) are the

sum total of ideas that mirror the vital interests
of classes, nations and states. They spring from

W6
the relations between classes, from the activity of
political parties and states, and are expressed
primarily in the programmes and charters of
political parties and in the constitutions of states.
Their nature depends on whose interests they
mirror and uphold. The exploiter class uses
political ideas to justify its domination. Political
ideas expressing the interests of the oppressed
classes demonstrate the need for abolishing the
exploiter system and creating a new, exploitation-
free society.
The political struggle invades all spheres of life
and penetrates all forms of consciousness. In fact,
the whole of social life, except in the epoch of the
primitive community, is permeated with political
interests, with political struggle. For example, the
question of whether scientific discoveries and
inventions serve peace or war is a political one.
The question of what is induced by poetry and
music and what feelings they arouse is likewise
a political one. Whether philosophy brings clarity
or darkness, or sows truth or falsehood is a
political question, too. Lastly, economic life is also
regulated on the basis of political considerations.
That is why, while defining politics as the con¬
centrated expression of economy, Lenin, at the
same time emphasised the precedence of politics
over economy. This signifies recognition of the
importance of seizing and consolidating political
power, and the pursuance of a correct policy for
the solution of economic problems. Furthermore,
this means recognition of the need for a political

107
approach to all economic, social, cultural and
organisational problems. It goes without saying
that politics will have precedence over economy
as long as classes exist, as long as the relations
between them are expressed in politics, and as
long as the state exists. In future, when com¬
munism finally consolidates itself on a world
scale, economy will remain but politics will die
away. When that happens the leadership of
economic and cultural development will lose its
political character.
Socialism is the first social system in world
history to turn politics from a means of coercing
and checking the working people into a means
of defending their gains and interests. While
expressing the irreconcilability of the interests of
the working people and those of the exploiters, it
gives all working people a greater consciousness
of their international community of interests and
aims.

Legal consciousness

Legal consciousness is the sum total of current

views and notions expressing people's attitude to
operating laws, their understanding of what a
person has the right to do and what is forbidden
to him by law. This consciousness manifests itself
in two basic forms: as the notion of the members
of society about their rights and duties and in the
form of legal theory, legal ideology. It is the
theoretical expression of all social relations that

108
 necessarily take the form of legal relations in any
organised society.
The bourgeoisie has always attempted to give
its legal consciousness out as the legal conscious¬
ness of the whole of society. The proletariat works
out its own socialist legal consciousness in the
course of the class struggle. This consciousness is
expressed in the political and legal demands of
the masses, in their actions against oppressors, in
the programmes of the workers' parties, and so on.
The building of socialism and the eradication of
the exploiter classes create all the conditions for
consolidating a single socialist legal consciousness
expressing the social, political and ideological
unity of the working class, the peasants and the
working intelligentsia. For the first time in history
there is in society a single legal consciousness
expressing the views not of some one class but of
the whole people. The principal ideas underlying
socialist legal consciousness are the protection of
public property, government of and by the people,
consistent democracy, socialist legality, genuine
equality, the promotion of rights and freedoms
together with public duty, and so forth.
While utilising all the necessary means of educa¬
tion and persuasion as well as the force of public
opinion with regard to transgressors of the law,
the socialist people's state power also applies
compulsion with regard to hardened, dangerous
criminals, hooligans, and embezzlers of socialist
property, who stand in the way of the building
of a new life.

109
 However, the very soil for any sort of compul¬
sion will disappear with the building of a classless
society, the reorganisation of production, distribu¬
tion and labour on communist lines, as well as the
communist transformation of the consciousness
and morals of the members of society. There will
be no need for the state as a political organisation.
The need for legal regulation will likewise fall
away. Members of communist society, with their
high level of culture, ideology and morality, will
abide by the rules of the community as a matter
of course.

Moral standards

Moral standards appeared with the formation

of society. They are founded on the customs that
perpetuate what the experience of generations has
found to be useful for the preservation and devel¬
opment of man and of society as a whole. Only
joint labour could turn the instincts of man's
animal ancestor into conscious and socially
significant motives of behaviour. The moral form
of consciousness (feeling of shame, repentance,
remorse, duty, honour, and so on) distinguish
human beings from animals.
Conscience and the sense of duty, which dictate
our laws to us, are not inborn. They are inculcated
in early childhood.
The society in which we have grown up has
made us what we are in the moral respect. Public
opinion and the attitude of friends, relations and

110
other people accompany us throughout our lives
and induce us to act in accordance with moral
standards. Contempt or respect from those around
us is a great force. Frequently, what cannot be
done by punishment is achieved by a considerate
attitude, by kindness.
The entire range of human relations within
society requires definite regulating principles of
behaviour. They are partially expressed in law
and legal consciousness and are recorded by
legislation. But, in addition to law, there are what
are known as unwritten rules. These are expressed
in the concepts of good and evil, justice and
injustice, duty, honour, conscience, and so forth.
Known as standards of morality, they are rules
by which people are guided in relations governed
not by legal duty but by the force of duty, con¬
science and respect for public opinion.
In the true meaning of the word moral
behaviour is behaviour founded on people's inner
control and inner motives.
Social duties imposed upon each member of
society by his people, country, other peoples and
family take the form of moral duties. A person's
actions are motivated by inner requirements and
inducements. He experiences satisfaction when he
acts in accordance with his duty, or shame and
remorse when he violates his duty. Lofty standards
manifest themselves when man performs highly
moral acts not as a result of pressure brought to
bear upon him but of his own free will, because
he cannot act otherwise.

Ill
 What induces man to fulfil his duty? Awareness
of the interests of the social group to which he
belongs, and of his obligations to it.
Moral standards embrace not only the relations
of people to each other but also their relations to
society.
These standards are not eternal or immutable.
They change together with the development of
society. What may be regarded as moral under
some historical conditions, may be morally
condemned under other conditions. For example,
the extermination of tribes and peoples by the
colonialists in the epoch of the rule of colonial¬
ism was morally justified by the exploiters.
Today colonialism is condemned by ail nations
as the vilest evil that has to be ended once and
for all.
In society divided into classes with conflicting
interests morals are always of a class nature, i.e.,
they serve the interests of one or another social
class or social group. The working people have
their morals and the exploiters have theirs. But
the dominant moral standards are those that suit
and are profitable to the propertied classes.
The farther exploiter societies develop the more
are moral principles distorted. Money becomes
the main force in those societies. It turns fidelity
into treachery, love into hatred, hatred into love,
virtue into vice, vice into virtue, a slave into a
master, the master into a slave, absurdity into
wit and wit into absurdity. Inhuman manifesta¬
tions of religious fanaticism, national strife and

112
 predatory wars are given moral justification in
bourgeois society.
Exploitation of man by man, on which bourgeois
society is founded, is the most flagrant infringe¬
ment upon morals. The morals of the exploiter
classes are characterised by the formula of "man
is to man a wolf". Bourgeois morals have a
pernicious effect on part of the working people.
But they cannot poison the minds of the entire
people, least of all the mind of the working class.
Even under capitalism working people are, as a
rule, distinguished by their high moral standards.
The communist code of morals is the loftiest
and most humane. It embodies the ideals of all
working people. Communist morals, which
emerged in the bosom of capitalism, are
subordinated to the interests of the class struggle
of the proletariat. Under socialism their content
and aim is the building of communism. Moreover,
communist morals include all the basic human
moral standards that had been worked out by the
masses in the course of thousands of years of
struggle against social oppression and moral vices.
Socialism has emancipated labour. Work has
become a criterion of human dignity, a source
of moral satisfaction. Labour achievements bring
joy.
The loftiest principles of communist morals
spring from the very nature of the socialist
system, from its economic foundation: public
ownership of the means of production, which
unites people and enables them to live in fraternal

8-93 113
friendship and mutual respect and co-operation.
Out of this comes such an important principle of
communist morals as collectivism and comradely
mutual assistance.
From the standpoint of communist morals a
person is regarded as being conscious of his duty
and honourable if he is intolerant of transgressions
against public interests, makes himself useful to
society and does all he can to further the onward
movement.
Solicitude for other people and respect for
human dignity stem directly from the very essence
of the new society. Socialist humanism lies in the
profoundest trust and respect for the working man.
Communist morals are hostile to everything that
humiliates and outrages human dignity. They are
incompatible with hypocrisy, falsehood, vainglory
and slander. To be a real humanist today means
to be active in helping to promote human
happiness.
Love for people engenders hatred for those who
doom the working people to ruthless exploitation,
oppress the people and threaten mankind with the
horrors of war.
Humanism signifies the unity of the people
through a community of interests and aims,
solidarity and mutual assistance between the
working people of all countries in the struggle
for the common cause, friendship among all
nations, and co-operation among all fighters in
the revolutionary movements, irrespective of
colour or language.

114
 Communist morals require the observance of the
rules of the socialist community, attention to one's
elders, mutual respect in the family and care in
the upbringing of children. The principles of
communist morals stipulate certain moral features
in the character of each person: honesty, truth¬
fulness, moral purity, modesty in public and
private life, and intolerance of injustice, parasit¬
ism, dishonesty, grabbing and self-seeking.
But this is not something one is born with. It
has to be implanted through labour and the
struggle for a new life, by educating people and
giving them a scientific outlook on life.

Art
and aesthetic views

Through his development man has learned to

create in accordance with the laws of beauty and
aesthetically to perceive the attractiveness of
natural phenomena, and distinguish between
beauty and ugliness, and tragedy and ludicrous¬
ness in social life.
Only an aesthetically trained eye can appreciate
beauty. This training is provided by life itself,
by work, music, painting and books.
Art is a special form of aesthetic activity and a
form of social consciousness. It reflects objective
reality-social life and nature-devoting its main
attention to man, his work and his inner world.
Fauna, flora, mountains, valleys, seas as well as

8* 115
 the world of man-made things acquire significance
in art only when they show man's aesthetic rela¬
tion to the world around him.
The graphic form of reflecting life is a major
feature of art, for it distinguishes art from
science and philosophy. The world is cognised
scientifically and philosophically through concepts
and categories. But mankind cannot rest content
with solely a scientific knowledge of the world.
Man utilises other means to enable him to under¬
stand and record life, means that preserve the
direct vividness of a natural phenomenon. This is
achieved by art, whose task is to portray life not
in the abstract but in concrete images.
Art seeks to understand life, establish definite
moral and aesthetic standards and teach people to
think creatively, a quality that is extremely
necessary in all material and cultural activity. By
influencing people's thoughts, imagination, feelings
and will, art plays an important role in society.
The best works of art, which have achieved the
summits of fidelity, are closely linked up with the
life of nations, with progressive social achieve¬
ments, with the struggle of the foremost forces
of society against reaction. For example, the poetry
of Goethe, Byron and Mickiewicz, the paintings
of Rembrandt, David and Delacroix, the music of
Beethoven, Chopin and others drew their vivifying
juices from democratic liberation movements.
Bourgeois society with its antagonistic class con¬
tradictions was exposed with tremendous artistic
and social force in the works of Balzac, Stendhal,

116
 Dickens and Dumas, while the Russian people's
aspirations and love of freedom were powerfully
expressed in the works of Pushkin, Lermontov,
Nekrasov, Tolstoy, Chekhov, Glinka, Musorgsky,
Chaikovsky, Repin, Surikov and others.
Progressive art, which mirrors the ideals of the
foremost social forces, the interests of the
oppressed people, has always come into conflict
with the self-centred interests of the exploiter
classes. The ruling classes have always done their
utmost to subordinate art to their interests and
force it to stop giving a true picture of life. Art
has found itself in a particularly difficult situation
under imperialism. In criticising the capitalist
way of life, truthful, realistic art has achieved
great incisiveness and vividness. However, as a
whole, modern bourgeois art is experiencing a
deep-going crisis.
Because of its meagreness and reactionary
character, modern bourgeois art is witnessing a
catastrophic decline of form, a complete repudia¬
tion of all form. Bourgeois individualism, the taste
for all sorts of distortions and the renunciation of
the truth of life could not have brought art to
anything else. Daubs of colours, chaotic lines and
the wild clanging, howling and barking of
"music" express the features of formalistic art,
so-called abstract art. In art, abstractionism is
nothing more than the destruction of art and
mirrors reactionary trends in the development of
modern bourgeois culture, its degradation.

117
 Socialism has liberated art from slavery to the
exploiter classes, giving it broad opportunities for
development. Guided by Marxism-Leninism, which
is the most progressive world outlook of modern
times, socialist art serves the people, expressing
the loftiest ideals of the working man, the ideals
of the new life.
The highest aesthetic demand made of realistic
art is that it show the truth of life. Consequently,
realism signifies the truthful artistic portrayal of
life, the picturing of what is typical and basic and
not what is accidental. But socialist realism is a
special type of realism. In the past realism was
chiefly critical. That was only natural. The great
artists who lived in exploiter society exposed the
injustice and oppression dominating that society.
Their main aim was to destroy the old world. Of
course, they showed the shoots of the new, but
concentrated chiefly on exposing the moribund
world.
Socialist realism is also critical, revolutionary
and hostile with regard to everything that has run
out its time. However, it concentrates on showing
the creative side of life, on bringing out the
advantages and wealth of the new life being built
by the people.
It is an artistic method which consists of the
ability to assess the present from the position of
the future, to note elements of the future in the
surrounding reality and portray it artistically.
While showing the present, socialist realism
looks to the future, revealing the tremendous

118
prospects of building a new world. It lauds the
joy of creative labour that has been freed from
exploitation, extols the working man and
castigates everything that hinders the great cause
of building socialism and communism. A broad
and clear-cut road lies before the art of the peoples
who have shaken off the shackles of colonial
slavery. By making art serve the people, the new
states are making their cultural contribution
towards the development of human art.

Science

Science is a system of knowledge about nature,

society and thinking. It reflects the world in
concepts and laws, whose genuineness is verified
by practice. Its force lies in its reliance on facts,
in its generalisations, in the fact that behind the
casual, the solitary, it finds what is necessary and
governed by laws, and on that basis makes its
forecasts which are of enormous practical
importance.
Science springs from and develops on the basis
of practice. The requirements of material produc¬
tion constitute the chief motive force of its
development.
By its nature it is called upon to lighten work
and life, give people greater power over nature,
and show them how to improve social practices.
Progressive scientists have always regarded
service to science as service to their people and

119
the whole of mankind. Science broadens man's
outlook, delivers him from superstitions and
prejudices and helps to shape a materialistic world
outlook.
Science is closely linked up with philosophy,
being a form of social consciousness. In modern
times the highest level of development of philo¬
sophical thinking has been reached by dialectical
and historical materialism, a special science
treating of the most general laws of the develop¬
ment of nature, society and thinking.
The past several decades have witnessed
tremendous advances by natural science*, the
discovery of new sources of cheap power, the
creation of synthetic materials with the most
diverse properties, the establishment of new means
of communication, and so forth. Scientific achieve¬
ments have laid the foundation for a technical
revolution. Mankind now has real possibilities
of basically remaking society's productive forces,
lightening human labour, and increasing its
productivity with the aid of cybernetics. But has
this knowledge brought happiness to all people?
Has science abolished want and poverty? Regret¬
fully, that has not happened. Modern capitalism
paralyses tremendous forces in society and in
present-day science and technology. Consequently,
natural science does not of itself give man greater
power over nature. The degree of man's influence
over nature is determined not only by the level of
development of the productive forces or by science
or technology, but by the type of social system.

120
 Moreover, the one-sided development of natural
sciences and technology within the framework of
capitalist relations of production has brought the
monstrous shadow of a nuclear war over mankind.
However, science cannot be blamed for the
fact that its achievements may be used against
mankind; the blame falls on those who use science
in this manner.
The advances made by natural sciences and by
technology are linked up with the achievements of
science in socialist and capitalist countries. The
competition between them in the scientific field
does not exclude the mutual utilisation of the
results of research.
The course of events has shown that the socialist
system exercises a tremendous stimulating
influence on scientific development. Today the
U.S.S.R, occupies a leading position in many
branches of science. The first important steps in
the peaceful utilisation of atomic power were, as
everybody knows, made by the Soviet Union. This
branch of science and technology is now being
further developed. The Soviet Union's successes
in evolving new artificial materials for the
engineering industry, in cybernetics, mathematics
and a number of branches of chemistry are well
known. Soviet scientists have made breath-taking
progress in space exploration.
The main demand that life makes of science is
that it should approach its problems creatively,
from a principled position that excludes con¬
servatism and dogmatism, Marx used to say:

121
"There is no highroad in science, and its dazzling
summits can be reached only by him who is not
daunted by fatigue as he clambers up its stony
paths,"
Broad vistas are opening before the scientists
of the emergent countries and enormous tasks
face science in these countries. These tasks are
being tackled with the disinterested aid of the
Soviet Union and other socialist countries, which
are confidently coming to the forefront of world
science.

Religion

Any religion, as Engels put it, is nothing more

than a fantastic reflection in the minds of people
of those forces that dominate them in their every¬
day life, a reflection in which terrestrial forces are
endowed with supernatural powers. In a story,
folk tale or any other art, fantasy does not require
that the imagined be taken for reality. Religion,
on the other hand, recognises the imagined images
of God, the devil, angels, and so forth as real. An
element common to all religions is belief in the
supernatural.
How did it happen that people began to believe
in the supernatural? Why did they believe in
something totally non-existent?
Belief in the supernatural expressed primitive
man's helplessness. In primitive times people
were almost completely dependent on the forces

122
 of nature. They were unable to explain natural
phenomena such as thunder, lightning, rain, tides,
floods, earthquakes, the eruption of volcanoes,
disease, death or dreams. The need for under¬
standing these and many other phenomena steadilji
increased, but the possibility of gaining knowledge
was extremely scanty. People attributed super¬
natural powers to natural forces and human beings.
At the same time, they developed religious cults,
i.e., the sum total of religious acts such as prayers,
invocations, sacrifice, and so on.
Originating in primitive times, religious faiths
have survived to this day in capitalist society.
Social oppression of the working masses, "fear
of the blind force of capital-blind, because it
cannot be foreseen by the masses of the people-
a force which at every step in the life of the
proletarian and small proprietor threatens to
inflict, and does inflict 'sudden', 'unexpected',
'accidental' ruin, destruction, pauperism, prostitu¬
tion, death from starvation-such is the root of
modern religion which the materialist must bear
in mind first and foremost...
The masses tried to find in religion salvation
from the dreadful calamities and sufferings that
exploiter society inflicted upon them. The threat
of unemployment, impoverishment and nuclear
war engender uncertainty and alarm for the future.
Unable to find a way out of the social contradic¬
tions of capitalist society, people frequently turn

• Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 15, p. 406.

123
to religion, which, so it seems to them, can morally
assuage all their fears.
The very essence of religion makes it alien to
and incompatible with science: it is not knowledge
asserting the strength of man and his power over
nature, but blind faith, which is linked up, first
and foremost, with fear: faith is not proved, it is
tested.
Religion appeals not to human intelligence, or
practice, or experience, but to feelings. It artifi¬
cially excites feelings, promising people bliss after
death or threatens them with punishment, curses,
excommunication, the horrors of hell, of being
boiled in tar in hell, and so on. Striking blind fear
in the hearts of people and holding out the promise
of immortality, it calls upon them to submit to
their fate.
The emotional aspect of religion is part and
parcel of the religious cult. Every religion has a
system of rites that believers practise with the
object of influencing supernatural forces, and these
rites play an extremely important role. Becoming
a habit, they hold people captive to religion. They
gradually bring to life and stimulate religious
notions and intensify the torrent of dark and vague
sentiments that are linked up with religious faiths.
In socialist society the social roots of religion
are eradicated. Social oppression, the exploitation
of man by man, disappears together with the death
of capitalism. But religious faiths survive in the
minds of part of society. In the socialist countries
religion exists as a survival of the past. Inasmuch

124
as there are believers, there are churches and
priests.
The constitutions of the socialist countries
proclaim and guarantee freedom of conscience.
This means that there is freedom of religious
M'^orship and fx’eedom of anti-religious propaganda
and freedom of atheistic education. Although
religious survivals are tenacious they are not
eternal. With time they will disappear from
people's minds. Marx aptly put it when he said
that religion is a striving after spectral happiness,
which follows from the social system requiring
illusions. But it disappears as soon as the masses
become aware of what real happiness is and how
it can be achieved.
Chapter VIII

SOCIAL PROGRESS

With the exacerbation of the inner and outer

contradictions of capitalism, the forecasts of its
ideologists become ever more sinister. The
attempts to prove that the present epoch will wit¬
ness the destruction of civilisation are becoming
more and more widespread. The world outlook
of representatives of the bourgeois world is per¬
meated with morbid pessimism. They realise that
the bourgeois world is declining and disintegrat¬
ing, that it is doomed.
Bourgeois ideologists are striving to disarm
people ideologically, to paralyse their will for a
social reorganisation by false arguments about the
inevitable doom of mankind and even of the earth
itself. They ask if it is worth while fighting, striv¬
ing for a better future, showing concern for the
destiny of coming generations when the whole
population of the earth will perish from the colli¬
sion of stellar bodies or from the exhaustion of
solar energy if before that mankind does not
destroy itself with atomic bombs.
One of the principal means of ideological
influence, as applied by the reactionaries, is ta

126
 spread disbelief in the possibility of a better
future, to intimidate people with the future, which
is painted in the gloomiest of colours. This is being
done in order to embellish the ugly present, to
induce people to reconcile themselves with and
submit to what they already have.
Capitalism has entered the period of its decline.
It is hindering social progress. Its ideologists are
giving the decline of their class out as the decline
of the whole of society. But it is quite obvious that
nobody has been given the right to extend the
doom of capitalism to the whole of mankind. Bour¬
geois sociologists are speaking more and more
frequently of a "crisis of consciousness", of the
"collapse of human intelligence", of the "lack of
faith and programme". The words spoken by
Talleyrand in relation to the Bourbons may be
applied to the ideologists of the modern bour¬
geoisie. He said: "What can you expect of them?
Nature has placed the eyes of men in the front of
their heads in order that they may look forward,
but the Bourbons have their eyes on the other side
and they look back."
Even though some present-day bourgeois
ideologists do not dispute historical progress they
interpret it idealistically. They recognise progress
in consciousness, in theories, but deny that it exists
in the material conditions of life. Of course, there
is no shortage of bourgeois ideologists who do
their utmost to comfort themselves and others
and revive the dying belief in capitalism.
In addition to predictions about the decline and

127
doom of civilisation, legends are spread about a
"flourishing" capitalism disburdened of conflicts
and affording equality and freedom of the indb
vidual under conditions of private enterprise.
But concepts of this kind have no foundation
whatsoever. They have been invented to lull the
vigilance of the masses.
The history of the 20th century shows that in
the emergent countries social progress lies through
national rejuvenation, through transition, in the
case of some of them, from pre-capitalism to
socialism. There can be no doubt that in the long
run the developed countries will also repudiate
capitalism and turn towards socialism.

Criterion
of social progress

Mankind has traversed a long and thorny path

from the primitive herd to the full-scale building
of communism, from the stone axe to atomic power
and automation, from the camp and hut to giant
modern cities, from wandering bands of savages
to great nations, from primitive knowledge
sustained by mythology to a deep-going penetra¬
tion of the mysteries of the world. However, man
has wasted much of his intellect and physical
strength on false roads. There have been a
multitude of great and little, heroic and vile acts
on the stage of history. Sanguinary wars have left
behind mountains of human corpses. In the course

m
 of the past 6,000 years there have been something
like 14,000 wars. These claimed 3,600 million
lives. That is considerably more than the present
population of the world. In the past 3,600 years
the world has had only 292 years of peace. What
took decades and centuries to build was destroyed
in a matter of a few months or hours.
Powerful states and colossal empires have
flourished and then perished. Great and powerful,
they became small and poor. The entire history
of antagonistic societies is an unbroken chain of
struggles between opposing classes: slaves fought
the slave-owners, serfs rose against landowners
and feudal lords, workers joined issue with the
capitalists. Social revolutions gave birth to new
classes and broke the domination of others. Kings
and emperors were dethroned, the crowns torn off
their heads, which were, in many cases, separated
from their shoulders. In this turmoil, in the
struggle between opposing social forces, between
the old and the new, between the newborn and
the dying, mankind steadfastly moved and con¬
tinues to move ahead. The rate of social progress
mounted steadily. This progress with its countless
inner contradictions is an indisputable and many-
faceted fact. History tells us not only of breaks
in gradualness but also of tragic catastrophes
that brought about the destruction of whole
civilisations, for example the Maya civilisation or
the Mali Empire that existed between the Senegal
and the Niger in the 13th-17th centuries. In the

9-93 129
course of its history mankind has witnessed many
bright, sad, noble and sickening events.
Social progress cannot be regarded in the
abstract. It is not a self-contained or unearthly
goal of man's historical development. It is
governed by laws that differ from the laws of
biological evolution. The vitality of social systems
depends on the strength of the economic system.
The productive forces develop inexorably. Human
requirements compel people to improve the
means of production. But the development of the
productive forces and, primarily, technical prog¬
ress accomplished within the framework of
definite relations of production ultimately find that
these same relations hinder their further advance.
The social revolution sweeps away the old and
establishes new relations of production that open
further possibilities for the growth of the
productive forces. This is the mainspring of
historical progress.
Many people look into moral relations for a
criterion of progress. In other words, they regard
progress as the sum of human happiness. Others
see progress in the development of science, art
and education.
In fact, progress may be found in all or nearly
all spheres of social life: in public health, living
conditions, language, and so on.
However, in order to judge how far the whole
of society and not its individual spheres have
developed, we need a definite criterion. Such a
criterion is, first and foremost, the level of devel-

130
 opment of the productive forces in unity with
the relations of production.
The most progressive social system is one that
provides new possibilities for the development of
the productive forces, raises them to a higher
level and ensures them with a faster rate of growth.
We know that in the final analysis all other aspects
of social life, including culture, depend on the
level reached by the productive forces. However,
this level is an adequate criterion of historical
progress only in unity with the corresponding
system of production relations, because the
possibilities that society has of promoting the pro¬
duction of material and cultural values do not al¬
ways coincide with what society actually produces
or with the degree to which the produced values
become available to all members of society.
The level of development of the productive
forces shows how far mankind has progressed in
harnessing nature, while the character of the
relations of production indicates the degree of
maturity reached by the social system itself. For
that reason a social system may be regarded
progressive only if it gives the people a higher
standard of living and unlimited opportunities for
cultural growth, A system that does that has an
assured future.
Consequently, when we examine a criterion of
historical progress we must proceed not only
from the level reached by production but also
from the rate of its development, the standard of
living and the rate of growth of the people's well-

e* 131
being. For example, a socialist and a capitalist
country may have the same level of production,
but the social consequences of this will differ as
light differs from darkness.
In determining the advantages of one social
system over another, we must examine its rela¬
tions to the basic social problems of mankind. In
our day these are the abolition of exploitation of
man by man, the problems of war and peace, the
liquidation of the disgraceful system of
colonialism, and the age-old backwardness and
poverty of the peoples of Asia, Africa and Latin
America. The national liberation movement is
sweeping away the rule of foreign enslavers and
challenging the colonial powers, demanding just
compensation for the injustice and crimes of the
colonialists.
A social system that is opposed to the settle¬
ment of these problems cannot be regarded as
progressive.
From the fact that social progress is based on
the development of the mode of production we
draw the significant conclusion that the onward
movement of society is a historical necessity.
Individual reactionary personalities, parties and
classes may slow down this movement, but they
cannot reverse the wheel of history. Such attempts
have been frequently made but all of them ended
in failure. The imperialists, for example, want to
keep the emergent countries within the framework
of capitalism, but all their attempts are doomed to
failure. The nations do not want to be dependent

132
on imperialism. They want to decide their destiny
themselves.
The rate of social development is an important
expression of social progress. This is seen from
the example of individual social systems: the
primitive-communal system existed for hundreds
of thousands of years, slavery for 3,000-3,500
years, feudalism for 1,500-2,000 years, and
capitalism for only a few centuries. Socialism
required only several decades to enable it to begin
the process of its growth into communism, the
highest phase of human development.

Progress
under socialism

The transition to socialism has called to life

social progress of a qualitatively new type.
In contrast to all preceding social revolutions,
the socialist revolution abolishes the last exploiter
social system and brings mankind into the channel
of unlimited progress and social improvement
without exploitation, oppression or brutality.
People building socialism keep in step with
history, and that is why their aspirations are
realised. Socialism not only changes the nature
of progress but also greatly accelerates it.
Historical development proceeds faster as man
enters the epoch of socialism. All preceding history
becomes a sort of prologue to the history of
mature and flowering mankind. Man's real history

m
begins with socialism, because under socialism he
builds his life consciously and by plan.
Socialism provides limitless possibilities for
drawing millions of people into creative work and
awakens the masses who for ages had been kept
underfoot by exploitation. As a result, the rate of
social development is speeded up to an unheard
of degree. A comparison of the rates of develop¬
ment of the socialist and capitalist countries
strikingly shows the advantages of socialism.
Within an unprecedentedly short span of time, the
socialist system, which has been consolidated in
a number of countries, has put an end to age-old
economic and cultural backwardness and placed
these countries in the forefront for the level of
production, technology, science, education, public
health, and so forth.
A feature of progress under socialism is that all
aspects of social life-town and country, mental
and physical labour, the productive forces, culture,
advanced and less developed countries, and so
forth-develop evenly and rapidly. A third of
mankind has already taken the road to socialism,
giving rise to a world socialist system, which is
becoming the decisive factor of social develop¬
ment.
Under socialism, progress is continuous. It is
free of crises, stagnation and reverses, and does
not infringe upon the interests of individual
countries or peoples. It embraces all socialist
nations and countries, as well as all spheres of
the life of each country. This levels out the devel-

m
 opment of the different countries and regions.
The more advanced countries help those lagging
behind, thus smoothing out the uneven economic,
political and cultural development as inherited
from capitalism. The planned economy accelerates
the growth of the productive forces and enables
society to avoid many losses. Planned research,
cultural development, training of skilled personnel,
and so forth are likewise proving to be effective.
Public ownership of the means of production
has opened up unlimited possibilities for the
growth of the productive forces and, on that basis,
for the unrestricted blossoming of culture. This
unparalleled rate and scope of social progress is
one of the cardinal advantages of the socialist
system. Lenin wrote: "... In reality only socialism
will be the beginning of a rapid, genuine, truly
mass forward movement, embracing first the
majority and then the whole of the population, in
all spheres of public and private life."*
A key condition ensuring human progress is the
consolidation of a world without wars and arma¬
ments. Under capitalism the development of
production is an end in itself and man is only a
means, but communism proclaims the slogan:
"Everything for the sake of man, for the benefit
of man," Communism is performing a historic
mission, delivering all people from social
inequality, from all forms of oppression and
exploitation, from the horrors of war.

*' Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 25, p. 472.

135
 The triumph of communism, therefore, signifies
the triumph of the highest form of social progress.
Our complex age, which is full of sharp col¬
lisions, is witnessing the beginning of the realisa¬
tion of progressive mankind's most cherished
dreams in social reality, in the harnessing of
nature, and in science. Mankind has something
it can be proud of. It has every reason to be
optimistic, Marxism-Leninism looks to the future
with confidence. It sees real possibilities for
basically transforming society and ensuring
mankind with harmonious development along the
road of abundance, freedom and prosperity.
 CONCLUSION

Revolutionary transformations are taking place

in social life. Many peoples have already freed
themselves from social and colonial oppression
and exploitation. They are building their life along
new, socialist principles or creating the necessary
conditions for the socialist way of development.
These countries and peoples, and their parties and
governments are steadfastly implementing the
ideas of Marxism-Leninism or striving to arm their
people with these ideas so that they may live and
work in a new way, without exploiters and
oppressors.
Mankind's experience irrefutably shows that
Marxism-Leninism is the only correct, scientific
theory, and a mighty means of basically remaking
society. The indisputable supremacy of the rapidly
developing world socialist system over the
outworn capitalist world is becoming more and
more obvious to millions of people throughout
the world.
That explains the growing influence of the
theory of Marxism-Leninism, which has captured
the minds of progressive mankind.

137
 The modern world is witnessing an unremitting
struggle between advanced, communist ideology
and the reactionary ideology of the bourgeoisie.
Problems of social development and the laws and
trends of the historical process are at the root
of this struggle.
Historical materialism, which regards the
development of society as a process governed by
objective laws leading inevitably to the transition
from capitalism to socialism, is opposed by bour¬
geois sociology, which refuses to recognise this
process as being governed by laws and preaches
various forms of subjective, idealistic views on
social phenomena. Modern bourgeois sociology
seeks to provide scientific grounds for the domina¬
tion of the people by a handful of monopolists and
to justify the reactionary policies of the imperialist
bourgeoisie. It is spearheaded against the
materialist understanding of history, against the
theory and practice of communism. As a whole, it!
is permeated with anti-communism. It strives to
falsify the theory of historical materialism,
discredit the socialist countries and embellish
and defend the capitalist system and colonial
plunder.
The content and purpose of modern bourgeois
sociology contradict the objective laws of social
development. Together with the whole of bour¬
geois ideology it is experiencing a deep-going
crisis, which mirrors the general crisis of the.
capitalist system. It has no future whatever, being
the ideology of a class that is on its way out of

138
history. It preaches morbid pessimism and fear
of the future, distrust for science and in the
strength and potentialities of man, mysticism and
a denial of progress, malicious anti-communism
and defence of the system of hired slavery and
oppression.
By virtue of class reasons and also because of its
own fundamental methodological vices, bourgeois
sociology is unable to give answer to the vital
questions posed by history. It cannot put forward
a single idea that could lead the masses.
In their struggle against the theory of scientific
communism, the enemies of Marxism are
compelled to change their tactics and arguments,
and to look for new subterfuges and demagogic
methods. Bourgeois sociologists are resorting to
a more subtle falsification of the basic principles
of historical materialism. The U.S. philosopher
Sidney Hook, who is a militant ideologist of anti¬
communism, proposes that people should train
their imagination and minds in order to form
flexible instruments to counter the offensive of
communist ideology.
Mostly, modern bourgeois sociology is founded
on an idealistic interpretation of history. However,
far from all bourgeois sociologists openly
proclaim their idealistic views. Some of them
declare that there is no longer any difference
between the idealistic and materialistic interpreta¬
tion of history. This attempt to conceal the
fundamental difference between idealism and

m
materialism in the interpretation of social
phenomena is a camouflaged form of railroading
idealism into social science. In their striving to
falsify historical materialism-Marxist sociology-
bourgeois sociologists are distorting Marxism-
Leninism as a whole. For example, they are
counterposing some ideas that Marx had put
forward in his early works, when his outlook had
not yet taken final shape, to Marxism as a
scientific outlook, as a harmonious system of
economic, philosophical, sociological and polit¬
ical views. Enemies of Marxism are trying
to find contradictions between Leninism and
Marxism.
Despite historical facts and despite reality;
which attests to the durability of the fundamental
principles of Marxism on the laws governing the
development of capitalist society, bourgeois
ideologists write that the Marxist analysis of
capitalism has become obsolete. They portray the
changes that have been brought about by
capitalism's entry into the stage of imperialism
as the transformation of capitalism into a welfare
state, into people's capitalism, into a new industrial
society, and so forth. They give the modern
imperialist state out as a means of changing
capitalism into socialism. The increasing subordi¬
nation of the state apparatus to the monopolies is
pictured as the participation of people's produc¬
tion organisations in state administration. At the
same time, taking advantage of the intrinsic vices
of bourgeois democracy, some of them draw the

140
 conclusion that democracy is far from being a
perfect form of administration and propagate the
idea of a strong state, a strong government, in
other words, the open dictatorship of the bour¬
geoisie, i.e., fascism.
Theories that capitalism and socialism follow
the same road of development, that their social
nature and political structure are the same, have
lately become widespread in bourgeois sociological
literature. An example of these pseudo theories are
the concepts of a single world, a single industrial
society as preached, among others, by Raymond
Aron of France and Walt W, Rostow of the
U.S,A.
Bourgeois sociology does not have precise
scientific categories for a profound analysis of
the socio-economic nature of one society or another,
or an objective criterion for characterising the
development of different social structures. The
concept of an "industrial society" is only a
qualitative assessment of the development of the
productive forces, and does not offer a character¬
istic of the relations of production, whose sum
total make up the economic system of a society.
On the basis of this sort of superficial analyses
of social phenomena, the theoreticians of the
single industrial society examine two opposing
socio-economic systems-capitalism and socialism-
as a single industrial society.
The social purport of theories of this kind was
made clear by the French sociologist Raymond
Aron in a book entitled The Development ol

Ml.
Industrial Society and Social Stratification. He
writes that the concept of "industrial society"
makes it possible to by-pass the difficulties
engendered by the conflict between socialism and
capitalism and to regard "socialism and capitalism
as two modalities of the same type".
New theories have lately been put forward by
bourgeois sociologists under the influence of the
far-reaching changes that are taking place in the
world today. These theories stem from recogni¬
tion of the onward course of historical develop¬
ment and defend capitalism as the only progressive
way of development. For example, the theory
claiming that the capitalist and socialist countries
are following identical paths of development is
nothing but an assertion of the perpetuity and
immutability of the capitalist way of develop¬
ment.
Thus, the U.S. sociologist W. Rostow, who
champions the interests of the monopoly bour¬
geoisie, considers the road taken by the U.S.A.
as holding out the greatest prospects for social
development. Following up this line, he tries to
prove that for the economically less developed
countries the most expedient choice would be
not the socialist but the capitalist way of
development.
However, Rostow's myth about the advantages
of the capitalist road of development cannot
weaken the tremendous revolutionary impact of
the world socialist system on the minds of the
peoples who are actively fighting for national

142
liberation and the nations that have taken the
road of independent development with the aim
of securing their national rejuvenation, abolishing
age-old backwardness and poverty, and achieving
economic independence and social progress.
The history of the 20th century convincingly
shows that socialism and communism are the
only true road of social progress for all peoples.
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