In the People’s Democracies the working class and all working people are successfully advancing along the path of laying the economic and cultural foundations of Socialism. The fundamental political and economic transformations in those countries have, in their turn, led to big transformations also in the sphere of culture. Marxism-Leninism, the experience of Socialist construction in the U.S.S.R., teach that Socialism cannot be built without effecting a cultural revolution in the countries where the working class has won power. The need for a cultural revolution arises from the fundamental differences between capitalism and Socialism. The culture created by bourgeois society must be replaced by a new, higher culture – Socialist culture.
The working class and its advance detachment – the Communist Parties – are the bearers of Socialist culture. One of the paramount tasks facing the Communist Parties in the People’s Democracies is to raise the cultural level of the working people in every way, to develop a new culture, national in form and Socialist in content, a culture based on emancipated labour and inspired by the brilliant teachings of Marxism-Leninism.
As was the case thirty years ago in the Soviet Union, millions of people in the countries of the New Democracy have come forward to administer their State. For the first time in the age-old history of the peoples of those countries the working masses – the overwhelming majority of the population – have consciously set about planning their destiny. The chief task of the cultural revolution is to prepare the broad masses, all the working people, politically and culturally, and to draw them into the work of the running the State.
A new attitude to labour is steadily developing among the working people of the New Democracies. This attitude is reflected in expanding Socialist emulation and shock-brigade work. The desire to increase productivity of labour has embraced masses of the people. Thus, 50 per cent and more, of the workers are taking part in Socialist emulation in Poland, Rumania, Czechoslovakia and Hungary.
A profound cultural process is developing in those countries among the masses to master modern technique. But this is only the beginning. Socialism can be built on a higher technique than capitalism, on a higher productivity of labour than under capitalism. In order to create a higher technique, in order to reach a higher productivity of labour than that obtaining under capitalism and in order completely to vanquish capitalism, it is necessary to develop, on an ever wider scale, the creative forces of the working people, to keep raising their political, technical and cultural level.
New Socialist relations are taking shape among the people in the New Democracies. These relations are reflected in an appreciation of the best workers, in mutual support and emulation in labour for the benefit of the working people of their country. A big turning point in history is taking place, a turning point in the attitude to labour on behalf of society, as a personal and social duty, a turning point in social relations which, in a class society are determined by private ownership of the means of production, by the degree of wealth and poverty.
Centres of New Socialist culture are being formed also in the countryside in the People’s Democracies. These centres are the organs of People’s Power, the Party, the youth and other organisations, they are the Socialist State forms, the machine-tractor depots, the peasant producer cooperatives, and along with these the new schools, libraries and clubs.
Organised peasant labour in the co-operatives, the utilization of modern machinery and the running of the economy on planned lines are already yielding initial positive results. Thus, for instance, in Czechoslovakia the agricultural producer co-operatives succeeded, last year, in cutting down the time needed for harvesting the crop by 20-50 per cent and in lowering expenditure connected with the harvesting, by 20-25 per cent.
In Bulgaria, Rumania and Hungary the co-operatives are harvesting the best crop in the country. Peasantry who only yesterday engaged in individual farming are successfully mastering the methods of large-scale social production.
The growing number of peasant producer co-operatives is accelerating the revolutionary turning point in agricultural production. This, in its turn, will bring about a rapid advance of culture in the countryside.
Socialist construction in the People’s Democracies raises questions connected with the extensive development of culture.
Socialism cannot be built without making contemporary knowledge accessible to all the working people. The main question in solving this task is to equip the cadres of the Communist Parties and the broad sections of the intelligentsia with the teaching of Marxism-Leninism. This will increase their ability to orientate themselves in the complex problems of Socialist construction, in questions relating to the home and international situation.
Circulation of the classics of Marxism-Leninism in those countries is unprecedented.
They cannot keep up with the rapidly growing demand for these works.
Dialectical and historical materialism are being taught in the universities together with political economy and the teachings of Socialism. All pseudo-scientific bourgeois trash is being eliminated from the programmes and text books which are now being revised. Cadres in factory, mine and office are being educated on the basis of the Marxist-Leninist world outlook.
Thus, a profound revolutionary change in world outlook is taking place in the People’s Democracies. A new, Marxist-Leninist world outlook is replacing the idealistic world outlook, the obsolete ideas and conceptions implanted over the centuries by the feudal lords, the bourgeoisie, their ideologists, schools and reformism.
Communists do not deny or cast aside the achievements of the old culture. They critically regard these achievements with a view to utilising them for Socialist construction.
All the knowledge and technique created by mankind in the course of its history are becoming the property of the working masses who are building a new society.
The new Socialist culture can be built only in a stubborn and bitter class struggle in which working people resolutely oppose the corroding influence of modern bourgeois culture.
The contemporary imperialist bourgeoisie is no longer capable of new historical creative work in culture and art. The working class and Socialism alone are capable of mastering all that is precious in the old culture and of building a new Socialist culture.
The Communist Parties in the People’s Democracies are re-ducating the old cadres of the intelligentsia, are educating a new intelligentsia from the ranks of the working class youth, are training specialists, are working intensively to raise the general cultural level of the people.
Compulsory elementary education has been introduced and the number of elementary, secondary and higher school is steadily increasing together with the number of students.
Illiteracy and semi-literacy, the cursed heritage of the past, are rapidly being liquidated in the People’s Democracies. The allocations for public education are steadily increasing.
The number of theatres, philharmonic orchestras, cinemas, libraries, museums and factory clubs is growing in all the People’s Democracies. Concert halls, museums, and art galleries are crowded now with working people, particularly the youth.
The circulation of newspapers, journals and books greatly exceeds the pre-war figure. Numerous writers and artists drawn from the ranks of the workers, and musical, theatrical and many other art groups are coming forward.
Never before has people’s art developed so powerfully never before have so many talented individuals appeared from among the people as now.
In the struggle against formalism, against decadent bourgeois trends, the first major works of Socialist realism in literature and art are being created.
Restoring the finest democratic traditions and making the achievements of the culture and art of their countries accessible to the people, the People’s Democratic power teaches the people a greater love for the homeland which has now taken the path of real flowering, the path to which, in the past, the best patriots of the country aspired.
In the struggle for Socialism, in the People’s Democracies a new man is being born, a man of new morals, a man who loathes reaction and the imperialists, despises parasites and who is profoundly loyal to the cause of the liberation of mankind.
He is a patriot of his motherland which, following the Soviet Union, has taken its place in the ranks of the countries marching in the forefront of world progress.
In their great historical creative endeavour – the building of a
Socialist culture – the working peoples of the New Democracies are
inspired by the example of the Socialist Soviet Union, where a new
Socialist culture has been created, a culture which is the prototype of
the future culture of mankind which is advancing with historical
inevitability towards Socialism.
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