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V. Afanasyev
Towards Social EqualityCommunism is a classless society of social equality. This equality is achieved gradually by erasing the essential distinctions between the workers and the collective farmers, and also between the two latter classes and the intelligentsia.
Let us first deal with the eradication of class distinctions. Insofar as the basic indication of a class is its attitude to ownership, a necessary condition for erasing the distinction between the workers and the collective farmers is the elimination of the distinction between state or public ownership, with which the working class is linked up, and co-operative-collective-farm ownership, with which the collective farmers are associated, and the merging of these two forms of ownership into a single people’s ownership.
Towards a Single People’s Ownership
The possibility of bringing together and then merging state and co-operative-collective-farm ownership into a single people’s ownership lies in these forms of ownership themselves, in their socialist social nature. Insofar as state ownership is more socialised than co-opcrative-collcctive-i’arm ownership and inasmuch as it 266creates more possibilities for stale planning, the task is gradually to raise the socialisation level of co–operativecollective-farm ownership to that of state ownership. This is the only possible way to merge these two forms of ownership into a single people’s ownership.
The expanding relations between the collective farms and the state are another indication that the two forms of ownership are merging. These relations are promoted in the most diverse spheres: electric power supply to the collective farms from state-owrned power stations, the joint building of factories, roads and irrigation works, the planting of forest shelter belts, and so on. The expansion of intercollective-farm relations and also of the relations between the collective farms and the state is an objective process issuing from the growth of agricultural production, and the appearance of problems which the collective farms cannot tackle by themselves.
The drawing together of the two forms of ownership does not mean that co-operative-collective-farm ownership has outlived its day and should be at once abolished. On the contrary, it provides scope for increasing agricultural output, and the Party and the government are therefore taking steps to make the utmost, effective use of the possibilities offered by this form of ownership.
State ownership expands still further in the process of building communism. This is mirrored by the growth of the basic production assets of the economy, the further concentration and specialisation of industries, the development of the division of labour, and so on.
The drawing together of state and co-operative–collective-farm ownership and the erasure of the distinctions between them are removing the essential distinctions between the working class and the collective farmers in spheres such as the role played by them in the social organisation of labour and also the size of the share of the social wealth possessed by them, and the mode of receiving it. Indeed, in proportion to the development of socialist society, farm labour gradually becomes a variety of industrial labour, which means that the essential distinctions between the nature of the production functions and labour of the worker and the collective farmer are disappearing. Correspondingly, the collective farmer is changing spiritually; he is becoming more organised and plays a steadily increasing role in social and political affairs. At the collective farms the forms of distribution 268arc improving, and guaranteed payment for labour, modelled on the wage system at state enterprises, is being introduced for collective farmers. Along with payment in cash and in kind, social forms of satisfying people’s requirements—upkeep of children at kindergartens and nursery schools, tuition at schools, and health and cultural services—are becoming more and more widespread at the collective farms. A considerable portion of these expenses is borne by the state. A pension scheme has been started for collective farmers.
When we speak of the eradication of the essential distinctions between the working class and the collective farmers, we must bear in mind that the internal structure of both these classes is heterogeneous. Among the workers, as among collective farmers, there are skilled and unskilled workers, people with a high level and people with an inadequate level of political consciousness, highly educated, cultured people, and people with less education and inadequate culture. There is a marked difference between the collective farms themselves in the level of socialisation, technical equipment and efficiency: there are advanced, economically strong collective farms, and lagging, weak ones in the same way as there are advanced and lagging industrial enterprises. The surmounting of the essential distinctions between the working class and the collective farmers is thus also linked up with the surmounting of the distinctions within these classes, with the achievement of inner-class homogeneity and with the evening out of the level of development and efficiency in the work of different state and co-operative enterprises, with the turning of all of them into highly efficient, advanced enterprises. Class and inner-class distinctions are eradicated on the basis of the growth of production and social ownership and scientific and technical progress.
Thus, one of the principal ways of surmounting the essential distinctions between the working class and the collective farmers is to bring together and then integrate state and co-operative-collective-farm ownership.
Moreover, the simple act of turning the collective farmer into a state-farm employee does not make him a worker. For a long time to come he will remain a collective farmer by his mental outlook, organisation, culture, way of life, and so forth. Time, effort and education arc needed to remake the collective farmers’ way of life and thinking.
The erasure of class distinctions will not mean that all social distinctions will have disappeared or that complete social equality will have been attained. Within the system of state and co-operative-collective-farm ownership there live and work intellectuals, who, due to their position, differ substantially from people engaged in physical work. For that reason the abolition of class distinctions is linked up not only with the erasure of the distinctions between the forms of ownership but also with the eradication of the distinctions between town and country and between physical and mental work.
Surmounting the Essential Distinctions Between Town and Country
Socialism has abolished the age-old antithesis between town and country, and the exploitation of the peasant masses by urban capitalists. It put an end to the backwardness of the countryside, to the hopeless poverty of the peasants and to their lack of rights, which fettered the progressive 270development of society as a whole and of the peasant in particular.
Socialism has instituted social ownership in the countryside, transformed the small, scattered husbandries into large collective farms and supplied these farms with modern machinery. After wiping out the exploiting classes socialism changed the social structure of the countryside: all the peasants became toilers in socialist production. The town, which had been the adversary and exploiter of the countryside, became its true friend and ally. The alliance between the workers and the peasantry, which is the foundation of the socialist system, grew stronger, and the working class became the recognised leader of the peasants and the organiser of their new life in a new, socialist society.
The abolition of the antithesis between town and country is a law of socialism, a law that has been confirmed by practice in the Soviet Union and other socialist countries.
However, the surmounting of this antithesis does not signify the abolition of the essential distinctions between town and country. These distinctions manifest themselves in the fact that state ownership is supreme in towns and in industry, while in the countryside, in addition to state ownership (state farms and other enterprises) there is co-operative-collective-farm ownership. The town differs from the countryside and outstrips it in the level of the productive forces, technical equipment, the character and division of labour, the standard of living, the cultural level, the communal services, level of transport and communications, and so on.
Naturally, these distinctions leave their mark on the development of the individual, and place the rural inhabitant at a disadvantage with regard to facilities for enhancing his qualifications and cultural level and improving intellectually and physically, especially as the main achievements of material and spiritual culture are concentrated in the towns. The objective process of the erasure of the essential distinctions between town and country is, therefore, not an end in itself but a means of achieving a higher objective, namely, the creation of equal social conditions for the development of the individual, for turning him into an all-sidedly developed citizen of the new society.271
The gradual disappearance of these distinctions in the course of communist construction is mirrored in the change in the character of farm labour; the improvement of social relations and, in particular, of the relations of production, and their gradual growth into communist relations; the rise of the cultural level of the countryside and the recasting of its way of life. All these processes are founded 011 the promotion of the productive forces through the utilisation of the latest scientific and technological achievements and on the boosting of labour productivity.
Comprehensive electrification and chemicalisation, allembracing mechanisation and automation in production, and scientific and technological progress will gradually turn farm labour into a variety of industrial labour. Moreover, the growth of the machine-worker ratio will necessarily bring about a rise of the cultural and technical level and lead to peasants receiving special training. In the long run this will enable the peasant to take his place beside the urban worker in the united ranks of citizens engaged in communist production.
The old division of labour in the countryside is being surmounted. Formerly the peasant was a jack of all farm trades, and his work was seasonal. Essentially workers’ trades have now appeared in the countryside. The machine operator has become an important figure at the collective farms. In 1963 there were nearly twice as many machine operators at the collective and state farms as in 1940. Many of them have received training in allied trades, and this enables them to change their occupation.
The growth of the productive forces is reshaping the relations of production in the countryside—the socialisation level of co-operative-collective-farm ownership is rising and drawing ever closer to state ownership, economic relations are improving both within agriculture itself and between agriculture and industry, and the form of distribution is changing at the collective farms.
The migration to towns is natural and will continue, but it is not due only to the growth of the machine-man ratio or of labour productivity in the towns. Many rural 273inhabitants, particularly young people, aspire to move to towns because of the better facilities there for creative work, for obtaining an education, for cultural growth and for recreation.
This makes the surmounting of the cultural and livingstandard lag in the countryside an important social problem, which must be resolved before social equality can be achieved.
The rural way of life is gradually changing. Town-type houses with modern conveniences and paved streets are no longer rare in the villages. The number of shops is increasing rapidly and there are public catering establishments, children’s institutions, cultural centres and sports facilities. However, much still remains to be done in the way of raising the cultural level, and, in particular, organising everyday life in order to create the conditions for moulding the erudite, politically conscious and all-sidedly developed agricultural worker.
When we speak of erasing the essential distinctions between town and country, we must bear in mind the fact that in both town and country the population is heterogeneous. One section of the rural population is linked up with state ownership (workers of slate farms and other state enterprises) and the other is linked up with cooperative-collective-farm ownership (collective farmers). In both these sections there are brain and manual workers. Then again they may be subdivided into specialists and unskilled workers (rank-and-file collective farmers and state-farm workers, the lower echelons of office workers, clerical workers, and so forth). Hence the distinctions among the rural population as regards material security, cultural level and organisation of life must be taken into consideration when the problem of surmounting the essential distinctions between town and country is tackled. Moreover, this problem is closely connected with the problem of surmounting the essential distinctions between mental and physical labour in both town and country.
Surmounting the Essential Distinctions Between Mental and Physical Labour
Socialism has abolished the antithesis between mental and physical labour which exists in capitalist society, where the ruling classes monopolise the management of production and mental occupations and use intellectuals to further their mercenary interests and squeeze sweat out of manual workers. Under capitalism most of the mental workers—scientific and technical intelligentsia, executives, workers in art and literature—are in one camp with the exploiters, with the capitalists, which opposes the people engaged in physical labour (workers and peasants).275
The wiping out of the exploiting classes broke their monopoly over intellectual occupations and gave the broad masses access to education, science and culture. There emerged a huge army of intellectuals, who come from the people and serve the people in various spheres of social activity: industry, the administration of society, education, public health, science, art and literature.
There are neither antitheses nor absolute lines of demarcation between brain and manual workers, but there are considerable differences in their cultural and technical level. These differences are not accidental. They issue from the achieved level of the productive forces and the technical equipment of the economy. The present state of the economy is such that it requires both skilled and unskilled labour, i.e., the labour of workers and peasants and of intellectuals. This is due to the dissimilar levels of mechanisation, let alone of automation. The surmounting of the essential distinctions between mental and physical labour is an indispensable condition for achieving social equality, which will give all citizens equal opportunities for all-round development.
This task will be considered as having been carried out when all people become cultured and educated, i.e., when the cultural and technical level of the workers and collective farmers reaches that of the intellectuals. Naturally, the cultural and technical level of intellectuals will not remain at a standstill; technical, scientific and cultural progress makes it necessary for them constantly to improve and 276augment their knowledge and experience and raise their general cultural level.
The prime factor helping to erase the distinctions between mental and physical labour is scientific and technical progress, which, as we know, changes the nature of labour, making it intellectual and creative. The change embraces not only physical but also mental work, because monotonous and fatiguing operations (computation, collection and analysis of data, and so on) will be gradually taken over by machines.
However, this does not mean that scientific and technical progress will automatically raise the cultural and technical level of workers and collective farmers. In order to reach this goal it is necessary to open more general education, special and higher schools, improve the system of vocational and technical education and production apprenticeship and raise the political consciousness of the people.
With scientific and technical progress socialist labour will give way to communist labour, which will be neither narrow, specialised mental labour, nor purely physical labour, but a qualitatively new labour combining mental and physical effort. This will lead to the disappearance of the intelligentsia as a special social section, for all citizens will become intellectual workers of communist industry and culture. “In place of the old bourgeois society, with its classes and class antagonisms, we shall have an association, in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all.” [276•*
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Development and Drawing Together of Nations
In the Soviet Union nations developed not through a growth of national partitions national narrowness and egoism, as in capitalist society, but through a continuous drawing together, through increasing reciprocal assistance and friendship. The two interrelated progressive trends of the national question operating under socialism and during the building of communism are, on the one hand, the all-round advancement of each nation, the further growth of its economy and culture and the improvement of its social relations, and, on the other, the 277ever closer drawing together of socialist nations on the basis of proletarian internationalism and Soviet patriotism.
A new community of people, the Soviet people, has taken shape in the Soviet Union as a result of the operation of these trends. This community of socialist nations is free from social and national antagonisms, hostility and distrust. It has a single economic foundation: socialist ownership and a single Marxist-Leninist philosophy. Welded together economically, socially, politically and ideologically and united round the Communist Party and the socialist state this great community is today a close-knit family bent upon achieving one goal, namely, communism. The state form of this community is the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.
Fraternal co-operation and reciprocal assistance, which are unprecedented in world history, have taken shape on the basis of the undivided predominance of socialist relations of production in the Soviet Union. Born during the joint struggle against tsarism, withstanding the stern test of time and becoming fully formed as a result of the triumph of socialism, the friendship among the Soviet peoples has become the mighty driving force of socialist society and one of the greatest sources of its power and strength.
The building of communist society has ushered in a new phase in the development of national relations in the U.S.S.R., a phase characterised by the further development and drawing together of nations and the achievement of 278harmonious unity among them. The building of the material and technical basis of communism, the development and improvement of socialist social relations and the upsurge of socialist culture are leading to closer unity among the Soviet peoples.
The creation of the material and technical basis of communism furthers the all-round economic development of the Union republics, improves the division of labour between them, extends existing and forms new economic relations. The communist economy now being built up requires the closest possible relations between the Soviet republics. In proportion to the advance towards communism, each of them will be making an increasing contribution towards the development of the country’s productive forces, the promotion of scientific and technical progress and raising the standard of living, with the result that there will be a further economic drawing together of the socialist nations. This drawing together is facilitated by the building of new industrial centres, the discovery and tapping of natural wealth, the development of virgin land and remote areas and the expansion of all means of transport and communications.
As the Soviet socialist nations draw closer together, the boundaries between the Union republics within the U.S.S.R. lose their former significance. Frontiers between socialist republics are not those of national insulation, economic rivalry and political strife as under capitalism. They are open to intercourse, economic co-operation, political unity and cultural exchanges between nations. One can appreciate that because in the Soviet Union all nations enjoy equal rights, their life is built up on a single socialist foundation and their material and spiritual requirements are satisfied equally. Common interests unite them into a single family and, together, shoulder to shoulder, they advance towards a common goal.
For its national composition every Soviet republic is becoming more and more multinational and this is another factor testifying to the steady drawing together of the peoples of the U.S.S.R. In every republic people of different nationalities work and live side by side as brothers. The personnel of socialist enterprises is likewise multinational.
The social homogeneity of nations is becoming more and 279more pronounced as a result of communist construction, the removal of class boundaries and the development of communist social relations. Under socialism the class composition of nations consists of workers, collective farmers and intellectuals, and as progress is made in building communism the social distinctions between these groups are erased in all the republics without exception, and the new type of communist worker, the new, all-sidedly developed individual is moulded.
The culture, morality and way of life of the socialist nations acquire more and more common features and this ensures the further strengthening of trust and friendship among them. The spiritual unity of nations grows ever more firm. The socialist culture of the Soviet peoples flourishes, and the national cultures draw closer and become mutually enriched. International culture, which embraces all the best achievements of human culture, develops. The culture of every nation is enriched by creations that acquire a general, international character, and this marks the beginning of the formation of the future single culture of communist society.
The drawing together of nations plays an immense part in achieving the goal of communist society, namely, the moulding of the new man, because when, as a result of this drawing together, the economic and cultural development of the different republics reaches the same level equal conditions arise for the development and application of the capabilities of each and every person regardless of where he lives and works. People of all nationalities will get ever broader possibilities of mastering and utilising the achievements of the material and spiritual culture of other nations and thereby enriching their own production experience and raising their cultural level.
Survivals of national narrow-mindedness and exclusiveness, as well as outworn national customs that seriously hamper the moulding of the new man, are surmounted in the process of the drawing together of nations. In particular, this will put an end to remaining survivals (in individual republics) of inequality of women and remnants of the old, feudal attitude to them in the family and in everyday life.
The triumph of communism in the U.S.S.R. will witness 280a greater community of economic and ideological interests. Economy and culture will reach an unprecedented level of development, and communist features will become predominant.
The drawing together of nations will culminate in the merging of nations. However, this merging, i.e., the surmounting of national distinctions, is a much longer process than the erasure of the distinctions between classes. With the triumph of communism, class distinctions will disappear, but national and, particularly, language distinctions will remain for a considerable period of time.
In the course of communist construction, the drawing together of nations is an objective, law-governed process. But this does not mean that it is a spontaneous, unhindered process. The economic and cultural advancement of the socialist nations and their gradual drawing together are the result of the scientific guidance given to the development of national relations by the Communist Party and the socialist state. By directing and organising the economic, social, political and cultural relations of the different nations, combining the centralisation of the activities of all the republics within the U.S.S.R. with the promotion of national statehood, the granting of extensive rights to the republics and the furthering of local initiative, the Party and the government help the nations to achieve prosperity and draw closer together. At the same time, the Party combats all manifestations of parochialism and survivals of nationalism and chauvinism.
Notes
[276•*] K. Marx and F. Engels, Selected Works, Vol. I, p. 54.
Towards Social Self-Administration