THE ROLE OF SCIENCE IN THE SYSTEM OF SOCIALIST REPRODUCTION

I. A. NEGODAEV

The constant renewal of the production of material goods under socialism, i.e., socialist reproduction, presupposes: 1) the reproduction of the aggregate social product and, above all, of technology; 2) the reproduction of labor power; 3) the reproduction of socialist relations of production. All these processes take place not spontaneously, as under the conditions of capitalist society, but on the basis of the conscious use of the objective laws of nature and society. And although the aggregate social product is created by the labor of workers in material production, alongside them workers of mental labor also participate in the creation of material goods, and first and foremost engineers and scientists.

All the principal processes of socialist reproduction are carried out on the basis of the broad use of science. To illuminate the role of science in these processes is the task of this article.

As is known, the process of reproduction is, first of all, the process of reproduction of the aggregate social product. Of the entire mass of means of production and articles of consumption, the leading role in the course of reproduction belongs to the means of production and, above all, to technology. Technology, as the totality of the material means of people’s purposeful activity, is produced, functions, and is reproduced on the basis of the use of the laws of nature and society. Science provides information about these laws and about the methods of using them. The latter acts not only as a definite sum of knowledge about the laws of the objective world and the ways of their practical use, but also as a special kind of labor—namely, as mental activity for the production of knowledge about the objective laws of nature and society.

Science and technology may be considered as two aspects of a single human activity, mutually penetrating one another. The difference between them consists only in the fact that in science the object appears as an object of cognition, while in technology it appears as an object of human activity. This is entirely natural, since theory and practice are mutually connected and interact with one another.

By virtue of this, the questions of the reproduction of modern technology are inseparably connected with the problems of the development of science. The connection between science and technology

Under the conditions of the modern scientific and technological revolution, the connection is so close that science may, in a certain sense, be regarded as potential technology, and technology as realized science.

F. Engels understood freedom as the knowledge of necessity and action based upon it. “Freedom does not consist in an imagined independence from the laws of nature, but in the knowledge of these laws, and in the possibility this gives of systematically making the laws of nature operate for definite ends”¹. This formula of F. Engels is also fundamental for understanding the mutual connection between science, which cognizes the laws of nature, and technology, which, on the one hand, embodies the use of the laws of nature by man, and, on the other, is a means of transforming nature and subduing its elemental forces.

Consequently, technology may be considered in two aspects:

1. Technology as the result of man’s use of the laws of nature, their material embodiment, as the result of man’s transformation of the forces and substances of nature.

2. Technology as a means of man’s use of the laws of nature, by means of which man compels the laws of nature to operate in the direction he needs, as a means by which man transforms the forces and substances of nature.

In relation to science, technology appears above all as the result of man’s use of the laws of nature. Human aims are not the fruit of achievements of fantasy, but something determined by objective laws, in the use of which technology plays a major role. V. I. Lenin, singling out Hegel’s thought that “in his tools man possesses power over external nature, although in his aims he is rather subordinated to it”², calls this thought “the germs of historical materialism”³.

However, it must be borne in mind that the aims of man in the technical use of the laws of the objective world are determined by the circumstances in which people act; first and foremost, these are socio-economic conditions. Therefore, the development of science and technology and the character of the interrelations between them are enormously and ever increasingly influenced by socio-economic conditions (the character of production relations, the policy of the ruling class, the correlation of class forces in society, the state of war or peace, etc.).

Denying the connection of science with these factors, idealists seek to prove that the development of science is conditioned solely by the creative thought of scientists. Yet the scientist lives and creates in a definite social milieu, and his activity appears as one aspect of social activity. “But even when I am engaged in scientific, etc., activity,” wrote K. Marx, “an activity which I can only rarely carry on in direct association with others—even then I am engaged in social activity, because I act as a human being”⁴.

In all epochs, the problems confronting science have been resolved in close connection with the existing economic situation. Periods of scientific flourishing, as a rule, coincide with periods of progressive transformations in social life. The stagnation of economic and political life in the epoch of feudalism also determined the stagnation of scientific thought. The period of revolutionary actions by the early bourgeoisie, with enormous

force stimulated scientific progress. “The extraordinary flourishing of the sciences in the nineteenth century throughout the world was to a considerable degree a consequence of the French revolutionary explosion”⁵, wrote S. I. Vavilov.

Under the conditions of the contemporary scientific and technological revolution, science appears to an ever greater extent as a direct productive force. And, like all social productive forces in capitalist society, it enters into ever deeper contradictions with capitalist relations of production.

Under capitalism, alongside factors that to a certain degree stimulate the development of science (above all, the objective needs of production), there are factors that restrain scientific progress.

Progressive scientists are aware of the pernicious influence of the capitalist system on science. “If science wishes to help humanity,” wrote J. Bernal, “it must find a new master”⁶. This master was indicated by A. Einstein in his article “Why Socialism?”: “I am convinced that there is only one way to eliminate all these grave evils, namely: the establishment of a socialist economy, together with an educational system oriented toward social goals”⁷.

Under the conditions of socialism and communism, the development of science is subordinated not to the interests of a handful of entrepreneurs, but to the whole of society; the planned organization of scientific research develops; multimillion masses of working people are brought into science; the principle of collectivism in scientific work develops, which corresponds to the social nature of science and stimulates scientific progress.

The development of technology and of production in general is in still greater dependence on socioeconomic conditions.

People who develop technology strive to achieve definite aims through the practical use of objective laws in the process of producing material goods.

Consequently, they are guided by aims of two orders: 1) aims deriving from the natural and scientific basis of technology; 2) aims that compel a person to improve technology. The former determine the way of solving a definite technical problem; the latter are the motives that compel a person to improve technology. The laws of natural science speak only of the potential possibilities of technology, which are realized when definite socioeconomic conditions are present.

It was precisely the absence of these conditions that determined the fate of “premature” technical discoveries in Russia and other countries. Thus, French technical thought in the eighteenth century worked to a considerable degree in vain, owing to the absence of the necessary social conditions. In 1776 the first steamboat sailed on the Doubs River for two months, and in 1783 a second was launched. But the matter ended there. The same fate befell the first automobile in 1769, the idea of applying a clockwork mechanism to production.

The unevenness of economic development, militarization, the dominant position of monopolies, partial and full unemployment, the reduction of workers’ interest in increasing labor productivity, the production of surplus value as the main goal of the application—

⁵ S. I. Vavilov, Collected Works, Moscow, Publishing House of the USSR Academy of Sciences, vol. III, p. 189.
⁶ Science at a Dead End. Moscow, 1938, p. 42.
⁷ Quoted from: M. M. Karpov, The Basic Regularities in the Development of Natural Science, Rostov State University Press, 1963, p. 271.

of technology—all this constrains the development of science and technology under capitalism.

Conversely, under the conditions of communist construction, the development of technology is subordinated to the satisfaction of all the vital needs of the working people. The planned management of the national economy, the participation of the broad masses in rationalization and invention, the elimination of the opposition between mental and physical labor—these are powerful stimuli of technical progress. The words of K. Marx are confirmed: “the communists have to show that it is only under communist relations that already attained technological truths can be realized in practice”^8).

It is quite natural that if the development of science and technology depends on socio-economic conditions, then the interrelation between them is likewise dependent on these conditions. The character of this mutual connection, the degree to which the achievements of science are realized in technology, the influence of technology on the development of science—all this is determined by concrete political and economic conditions.

In other words, the interrelation of science and technology has a socially conditioned character. A progressive social system corresponds to the vigorous development of science and technology. It was precisely for this reason that F. Engels wrote that with the socialist revolution a new historical epoch will begin its chronology, in which people themselves, and together with them all branches of their activity, including natural science in particular, will make such advances that “this will completely eclipse everything done up to now”^9).

Modern technology is one of the products of science and of the knowledge mastered by humankind. Without knowledge it is impossible not only to create modern technical devices, but also to use them effectively. Present-day technology in the hands of primitive man would turn into a heap of matter, for the most part useless or used not for its intended purpose. The possibilities of modern technology depend to a considerable degree on how deeply man has cognized the objective laws of nature on which this technology is based. Science, generated by the technical needs of production, has an enormous power of reciprocal influence on technology and now acts as one of the most important driving forces of its development.

For technical progress under the conditions of communist construction, the leader of modern natural science—physics—has enormous significance. “Physics,” wrote S. I. Vavilov, “constitutes the foundation of the basic and most important branches of technology. Every mechanical device, method, and machine, from the axe to the most complex machine tool, is the result of the conscious adaptation of physical laws. Construction technology, hydraulic engineering, heat engineering, electrical engineering—the entire body of knowledge now called power engineering; lighting technology in the broadest sense; and a vast part of military technology—all grew on the soil of physics and to this day preserve it as their foundation”^1).

The development of modern technology is enormously influenced by chemistry, biology, mathematics, the whole complex of technical sciences, and even those sciences which, it would seem, are far removed from the technical demands of production—for example, those connected with the study of outer space.

The exploration of space stimulates the development of the newest and highly efficient branches of production and helps, by qualitatively new methods, to solve a number of already urgent tasks of the national economy.

New directions in science—electrical engineering, nuclear physics, semiconductor and computer technology, bionics—have caused profound—

^8) K. Marx and F. Engels, Works, vol. 27, p. 483.
^9) K. Marx and F. Engels, Works, vol. 20, p. 359.

…a profound change in machine production. Modern technology is materialized science. In the words of K. Marx, “all these are products of human activity: natural material transformed into organs of the power of the human will over nature, or into organs for the exercise of this will in nature. All these are organs of the human brain created by the human hand; the objectified power of knowledge”⁵.

Under the conditions of the modern scientific and technological revolution, production is becoming a distinctive form of a gigantic experiment, while scientific experiment is acquiring industrial scale. The boundary between scientific research and technical development is being erased; the “industrialization” of science is taking place (institutes are equipped with installations of industrial significance) and the “scientification” of industry (support bases for science are created at enterprises).

Modern science not only determines the creation of particular technical devices, machines, and mechanisms, but, on the basis of studying the laws of nature, can foresee the further development of technology. For example, in the field of metalworking, rolling, drawing, and broaching—in which processing is carried out along a line—are replacing cutting, or point processing. The further improvement of metalworking proceeds from the processing of surfaces (dies) to processing throughout the entire volume, i.e., with the use of processes of internal crystallization.

The ability of science to foresee the paths of development of individual branches of technology, as well as the understanding that the further development of technology on the existing theoretical basis is impossible, stimulates—at certain periods—the concentration of engineering thought on particular problems.

The reciprocal influence of science on the development of technology is connected with a number of circumstances:

1. Science affects technology immeasurably more strongly and effectively than empirical knowledge developed on the basis of people’s skills and individual production experience.

2. The assimilation of scientific achievements takes a comparatively short period of time in comparison with the time required for the initial development of scientific knowledge. Moreover, science is a form of capital that not only does not depreciate as it is used, but, on the contrary, increases.

3. The benefits from applying the achievements of science and technology are far greater than the expenditures incurred by society on science. The English physicist C. Powell wrote that “...although our modern civilization is based fundamentally on the achievements of the theoretical science of the past, everything that has ever been spent on theoretical science is equal to only the value of modern industrial production for two weeks. In other words, everything ever spent on the theoretical sciences in the past is equal to the expected increase in production for the current year”⁶.

The cost of “scientified” agents of production is far lower than the returns from their application; therefore, science makes possible the broad productive use of forces of nature which, as such, have no value.

In noting the role that science plays in the reproduction of technology, it is necessary to emphasize two circumstances. The first is connected with the fact that

different sciences exert different influences on the development of technology. Theoretical natural science, by discovering previously unknown phenomena and laws of nature, creates the first prerequisite for the application of these laws in technology. The technical and technological sciences are concerned with searching for ways and methods of applying, in technology and production processes, the phenomena and laws of nature discovered by the natural sciences.

The second circumstance is connected with the fact that the interrelation of science and technology, of intellectual and material production, generally takes a specific form at each historical stage of social development. Moreover, as science and technology develop, the forms of interrelation between them become more complex.

At first, before the emergence of large-scale machine production, the laws of nature were used spontaneously in production on the basis of the production experience and skills of production workers. Science influenced technology through accidental, episodic contacts with production. There was no conscious application of science to technology; science and technology developed, as it were, in parallel. With capitalist machine industry begins the stage of the conscious application of science to the development of technology. But the character of the interrelation of science and technology in that period was such that science, responding to the demands put forward by technology, received more from the latter than it gave to it. In the course of the modern scientific and technological revolution and the building of communism, the state of technology increasingly directly reflects the state of science. The level of technology becomes a direct indicator of the practical participation of science in technical progress: the younger the technology, the deeper its connection with science. Science is increasingly being transformed into a direct productive force of society.

Thus, the role of science in the reproduction of the means of production is growing. Moreover, under automated production, science outstrips the immediate demands of technology, goes ahead of these demands; within science new types of technology are born (atomic technology, quantum generators, MHD generators, radio electronics, etc.). Science strengthens the relative independence of its development. Scientific research, becoming ever deeper, as it were expands the sphere of its own freedom; the significance of the internal laws of scientific cognition increases; the theoretical basis of science moves farther and farther away from the data of experience.

However, the relative independence in the development of science is precisely relative, i.e., it occurs within the limits of the general dependence of the historical development of cognition on the processes of production and does not indicate a primary role of cognition in relation to technology.

Moreover, the causes of the relative independence in the development of science are ultimately also conditioned by the development of production. Modern socialist production poses ever more complex tasks for science and demands greater precision in their solution. To find the optimal variant for solving a given task, science broadens the front of its search, perfects its apparatus, and must have its own “upper stories,” theoretical reserves. What the magnitude of the permissible disproportion between the “research front” and the “implementation front” is, what the planned dimensions of the zone of scientific search should be—these questions still require their scientific substantiation, which is, in particular, a task of the economics of science.

The general conclusion from all that has been set forth above is that the role of science in the reproduction of the means of production and, above all, in the reproduction of technology, is growing under the conditions of the modern scientific and technological revolution and the building of communism.

However, the role of science in the system of socialist reproduction is not exhausted by this. The point is that science exerts an enormous influence on the reproduction of the means of production not by itself, but through the active, transformative material-production activity of people. Discoveries in science cannot by themselves influence the reproduction of the means of production. This influence is felt only when discoveries are embodied by people in technology, in new and more advanced machines, mechanisms, instruments, and technological processes. The more people use particular scientific ideas in their activity, the greater the significance these scientific ideas have for practice, the more they are materialized and the greater their power of reciprocal influence. Paraphrasing the well-known words of K. Marx, one may say that scientific ideas become a material force when they take hold of the masses. The task of mastering scientific ideas, i.e., the task of education, is an important function of science in the reproduction of labor power.

Under capitalism, science is separated from the producers of material goods; it appears as a productive force of capital, a means of exploiting the working people. But science is not only a means of exploitation; it is also an object of exploitation. Capitalists exploit not only physical labor but also mental labor. In exploiting science, capital forces it to serve the production of surplus value. Capitalists allow workers access to science only to the extent that this can increase the productivity of their labor and, consequently, the profit of capital. The entire system of the social organization of science and education is directed toward ensuring the production of maximum profit. Labor power is reproduced as a mere appendage of the machine, i.e., the reproduction of labor power is accompanied by the suppression of the workers’ intellect, by their one-sided development, by “professional idiocy.” Labor power is reproduced mainly as a physical, and not a spiritual, force of material production.

Under the conditions of communist construction, science is placed at the service of all members of society; it appears as a productive force of society, a means for the fullest satisfaction of the growing needs of all members of society. Under these conditions, science is used for the development of all people’s creative abilities. The process of the reproduction of labor power is accompanied by the all-round development of the personality. Labor power is reproduced as both the physical and spiritual force of material production and of all other aspects of social life.

The reproduction of the means of production on a higher technical basis leads to a constant raising of people’s qualifications. In vocational-technical schools and colleges, 16 million workers were trained in 1940–1965. Extensive work in training and upgrading the qualifications of workers is being carried out at enterprises. Thus, in 1965, 2,605 thousand new workers were trained, and 7,240 thousand underwent training to improve their qualifications.

The increased requirements for the qualifications of the main mass of workers have brought about the powerful development of vocational-technical education for young people and an improvement in the quality of training of working personnel. At present, there are more than 4 thousand vocational-technical schools in the country, in which more than 1 million 500 thousand young men and women are studying. The number of workers and employees receiving secondary education without leaving production is growing. Higher education is developing, training engineers and production managers, scholars and physicians, teachers and agronomists.

The entire social organization of science and education ensures an acceleration in the growth rates of labor productivity, which, in turn, stimulates the growth of national income. In 1965, national income in the USSR had grown by 59% in comparison with 1958.

Serving as a firm foundation for planned and uninterrupted expanded socialist reproduction, science helps to eliminate the essential differences between mental and physical labor, and between town and countryside.

Today the labor of the worker and technician is rising to the level of engineering labor, and the labor of the engineer to scientific labor, to the labor of the scholar. A vivid expression of this process is the participation of broad masses of working people in rationalization and invention, and the cooperation of workers in science and production.

An important role in the system of socialist reproduction is played not only by the natural, technical, and technological sciences, but also by the social sciences.

Some of the social sciences that have access to production are a direct productive force of society. This applies to the economic sciences, technical aesthetics, engineering psychology, logic, the physiology of labor, and the scientific organization of labor. The application of these sciences has a direct economic effect. Moreover, the social sciences are the theoretical basis for guiding the development of society and a means for the all-round development of the individual and the formation of the human being’s spiritual world.

The role of the social sciences under the conditions of communist construction is steadily increasing. It is precisely for this reason that the Resolution of the Central Committee of the CPSU “On Measures for the Further Development of the Social Sciences and for Raising Their Role in Communist Construction” notes that the Party regards the creative development of Marxist-Leninist theory as “its most important duty, as a necessary condition for fulfilling the tasks of communist construction set forth in the Program of the CPSU.”

Thus, one of the most characteristic features of the socialist economy, especially in the period of transition to communism, is that the entire system of socialist reproduction is carried out on the basis of a broad application of science, unprecedented until now. In this way communism creates a favorable climate for scientific and technological progress. This is the indisputable advantage of our advanced social system.

1. K. Marx, F. Engels, Works, vol. 20, p. 116. ↩

2. Hegel, Works, vol. VI, p. 205. ↩

3. V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, vol. 29, pp. 171–172. ↩

4. K. Marx, F. Engels, From Early Works. Moscow, 1956, p. 590. ↩

5. From unpublished manuscripts of K. Marx. Bolshevik, 1939, No. 11–12, p. 63. ↩

6. C. F. Powell. The Role of Theoretical Science in European Civilization. Mir nauki, 1965, No. 3, p. 4. ↩