I. A Fork in the Road of History

A.Two Positions

At the turn of the millennium the development of the human race is acquiring a new quality that substantially changes the face of the modern world and the whole system of international ties and relations. This has become a commonplace in the reasoning of politicians and economists, philosophers and sociologists of diverse scientific persuasions and political sympathies. Everybody agrees that mankind is living through a period of intensive integration, the formation of world economic, political and cultural systems that go far beyond the framework of individual states. This is reflected in the current term 'globalization'. The word has become widespread because, being politically and economically neutral, it allows of contradictory, sometimes diametrically opposite interpretations. And the interpretations are multiplying year by year. There is no common view in the world on the essence, the motive forces and consequences of globalization. The argument, which is by no means theoretical, is hotting up, because it affects the interests of practically every inhabitant of the planet.

The advocates of globalization speak about the emergence of a 'consumer', 'postindustrial', 'information' society, etc. They welcome the advent of 'a new world order' which is supposed to bestow on mankind an unprecedented degree of prosperity: higher living standards and quality of life, more jobs, broad and free access to information, and improved mutual understanding between different cultures and civilizations. Elimination of every kind of obstacle - state, ethnic and cultural - in the way of free movement of goods and people, capital and ideas. The smoothing out of social contradictions. And finally, universal peace and security. In short, the whole world is our common home. Almost world-wide communism only on a different, market basis.

The opponents of the new world order prefer to speak of 'mondialism', 'a world conspiracy' and even the advent of an apocalyptic 'kingdom of the beast' in which there will be no room left for Man, his ethnic, cultural and personal identity and spiritual ideals. Opponents of globalization are becoming ever more numerous and vocal. Practically all the meetings and sessions of new world centers of economic dominance - the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, the World Trade Organization - have been accompanied by mass protest demonstrations. We have seen this in Seattle, Seoul, Prague, Davos and many other venues. Protestors stress that sway of international financial speculators makes world economy increasingly unstable and unfair. Social and class inequalities are worsening. The social and economic gap between developed capitalist exploiting countries and the oppressed proletarian countries, which are stuck with the role of a raw materials appendage and a dumping ground for the 'golden billion', is deepening. The President of Brazil, Fernando Cardoso, recently described the economic policy of the leading capitalist powers as 'the new apartheid'.

Fidel Castro is one of the more consistent critics of such globalization. The leader of the Cuban revolution stresses that this process is driven by the interests of a small group of trans-national corporations and some imperialist states. He is tireless in exposing its aggressive essence that is hostile to the interests and aspirations of the peoples of the world.

The opponents of globalization are outraged by the growing political influence of transnational corporations which dictate their will to whole states and peoples. They accuse the architects of the 'new world order' of brazen interference in the affairs of sovereign states, which often takes the form of military interference. Resorting to direct aggression against 'recalcitrance' and kindling ethnic and intercommunal conflicts all over the world, the West has, in effect, unleashed a new , 'creeping' world war in which millions of people have already perished.

The state of the Earth's ecology which is cynically being sacrificed to the interests of capital is giving growing cause for concern. The selfish super-consumerist rat-race launched by the West absorbs more and more non-renewable natural resources leading to irreversible changes of the environment with disastrous consequences for the whole mankind.

'The ecology of the spirit' is in an equally tragic state. It is the target of a massive onslaught of ubiquitous mass media which have been fully monopolized by big capital. It is duped by cheap mass culture with its cult of violence and sex. Under the guise of 'free circulation of ideas and information' a policy of information and cultural imperialism is implemented. Manipulation of people's consciousness and feelings, interests and needs, a forced unification of the spiritual world at the lowest and most primitive level is turning mankind into a thoughtless mass obedient to the architects of the 'new world order'. So the phenomenon called ' globalization' is a tangle of contradictions that is becoming ever more tight. Mankind is becoming ever more powerful in scientific and technical terms. But at the same time it is becoming evident that the development of productive forces per se cannot resolve the problems and contradictions of the modern world. As the seventh Congress of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation pointed out, "the triumphs of technology, global computerization, the conquest of the four natural elements have not made the world a safer and a fairer place.'

In these conditions, faced with the challenges and threats of the third millennium, Russia in particular needs an effective and scientifically valid strategy of national revival; a strategy capable of restoring the internal unity of the nation and our readiness for an uphill struggle; a strategy based on clear understanding of the nature of the forces that currently determine the direction of human development. All this warrants a deeper look at the essence of globalization in order to find out what is behind this fashionable term over which so many lances have already been broken.

Literally, 'global' means 'embracing the whole planet'. This term undoubtedly reflects some important features of contemporary processes. But it is equally not open to doubt that it leaves out other important and inherent features of reality. For example, it reduces all social contradictions to geographical ones. But when world contradictions are put within a system of geographical coordinates, 'West-East' or 'North-South', that simplifies the essence on the one hand and lends them an 'eternal' and 'inevitable' character. Methodologically such a return to the times of Montesquieu's geographical determinism is hardly productive.

Many natural processes in the world have a global character. These are above all the processes that form the subjects of geology, geography, meteorology, ecology, etc. When people discovered that some social processes-technological and economic, political and cultural - are beginning to acquire a similar planetary character, these processes came to be studied in the first place by the specialists and by the methods of these sciences. But natural sciences, for all their unquestionable merits, fail to reveal the essence and specific features of social life. The most they can do is to state that humankind and its civilization have become a single whole spanning the whole world. They can build quantitative and structural models of this process and try to make forecasts by extrapolating these processes etc. Nine tenths of modern futurological studies are like that. An example in point is the reports of the Club of Rome that caused such a stir in the early 1970s. But the method of natural sciences and mathematics do not answer and cannot answer the question as to 'whether globalization is an objective, necessary and inevitable process and what are its driving forces and its general and specific forms'. This is simply not their subject.

If one proceeds from the obvious fact of steadily expanding human activities, one can hardly speak about the process of globalization as a qualitatively new phenomenon in societal life. For this process is practically as old as human history. Isn't the spread of primitive tribes or all over the globe one of its first steps? Whatever advance of civilization one looks at, - the use of fire, domestication of wild animals, land farming, irrigation, metallurgy, the invention of the wheel, of the sail, not to speak of the achievements of industrial revolution in the 18th 19th centuries - each marks a step towards greater mastery of man over the forces of nature and expanding the scope of his activities. The era of great geographical discoveries made a contribution to globalization at least as big as the creation of space communication systems. So it would be more correct to speak about the modern stage of globalization. But it cannot be seen in isolation from the preceding stages.

The processes of globalization, that is, economic, political and cultural integration of mankind, started a long time ago and were already under way a hundred and a thousand years ago. They did not proceed in a smooth and conflict-free manner, but extremely unevenly and were ridden with social and economic contradictions. Globalization in the 20th century is marked by the greatest degree of unevenness and the highest pitch of strife and contradictions. This stems from its new features that leaves an imprint on the character of modern contradictions and the general background of development.

What are these new features? Technologically, the modern stage of globalization has reached a point when there is practically no room left for expansion of economic activities over the earth's surface. At the same time, the world ocean and the space near the earth is being increasingly developed. The 'second nature' created by man - the production, energy, transportation, communication, housing and other infrastructure is, in terms of its scale and the energy flows it involves, becoming commensurate with the spaces and energies of the geosphere. The emergence of the intelligent life as a geological factor and the formation of the noosphere was foreseen by Vernadsky. Economically, the world division of labour is steadily deepening and inter and intrasectoral cooperation is growing stronger. Production relations and technological chains often transcend natural boundaries entangling the whole world. Simultaneously the process of concentration and internationalization of ownership of the means of production is under way. Ever more powerful transnational production and economic associations are emerging with supranational coordination, regulation and management bodies. A global economy is emerging as a single organism in which everything is interconnected.

Similar processes are taking place in the political sphere. Economic integration dictates ever closer interstate links, the lifting of barriers in the way of the movement of goods, capital and manpower. From a phase when international relations were regulated by bilateral and multilateral agreements and organizations the world is passing on to international associations of a higher degree of political integration. An example in point is the integration of West European countries into a single European Union with supranational political bodies.

Finally, we see ever greater interaction and mutual enrichment of various cultures in the world. A single world cultural space is emerging. Thus the present era is notable above all for the fact that expansion has almost reached its logical conclusion. 'Expansion' has practically ended and we now are entering an era of 'in depth' development. Globalization is entering its intensive phase. One manifestation of this is, first, that ever broader and more complex - global - problems have arisen and are proliferating, which cannot be solved by individual states or their regional associations and call for combined efforts of the whole mankind. These are the problems of conservation of the environment, of feeding the world's growing population, looking for new sources of energy, preserving peace and the survival of mankind in the nuclear age, etc.

Secondly, we live in an era when world integration processes have dramatically accelerated. The main accelerator is the 'information revolution'. Computarization has sharply increased the cohesiveness of the present-day world. Economic, political and cultural events in any point of the globe have an instant impact on the rest of the world. The speed with which managerial decisions are made and implemented has increased to an extraordinary degree. Global management has become a technical possibility.

Computer technologies are being introduced in all the spheres in the life of the state and society. Thanks to the creation of the microprocessor the computer has ceased to be something available to a narrow circle of researchers, planners and politicians, to become an ordinary household appliance. In its cultural impact this can only be compared to the invention of book printing. Now personal life is coming to depend more and more on information and communication systems. And although an overwhelming majority of users of personal computers do no more than amuse themselves by playing electronic games or mindlessly surfing the internet, some results have already emerged. The personal computer has become an effective instrument in molding a certain cultural stereotype. The technical possibility is there for creating a worldwide system of values, and a uniform way of life. Therefore, an objective need arises for a world political and economic regulation center, and on the other hand, the material and technical prerequisites for the emergence and functioning of such a Center are being formed.

We may be approaching a qualitative turning point in the development of human civilization. All that it takes is practically in place.

1) mankind can now develop only as a single whole, otherwise it will simply be unable to cope with all its problems;

2) it can in principle manage its own development in a conscious and planned way; and

3) the level of modern technology makes it possible to address the most complex of the tasks that can arise along the way.

One might say that a new dimension of technical-economic, social-political and cultural progress is knocking on the door. But the crucial question of what this new dimension will be like remains open. Its solution involves social, political and national interests. And the interests are still different, as they have always been. Which of these interests will triumph and which will be suppressed in the course of globalization? And if the interests are agreed and harmonized, in what concrete ways will it be done?

In short, we see another confirmation of the classic Marxist-Leninist thesis to the effect that any revolution - even if it is a scientific-technical revolution - exacerbates the question of power- not only political and economic power, but also information, cultural and spiritual power. Developed capitalist countries in the First World, or 'the golden billion' have a clear and unambiguous answer to this question: 'From now on and ever after globalization will proceed under our guidance. Humankind will live and develop according to our prescriptions and models.' Some of the best intellectual resources in the West have been harnessed to the development and fine tuning of such models. Huge financial, material and military resources are spent on their implementation.

B. Three-Tiered Civilization

Western literature provides a vast and eclectic theoretical exploration of the new global world order. Standing out among its 'spiritual fathers' are the sociologist Emmanuel Wallerstein, the philosophers Karl Popper and Frances Fukuyama, the 'grey eminence' of American foreign policy Zbigniew Brzsezinski and the financier Jacques Attali.

Wallerstein sees the world capitalist system as the first historical form of global world order developing through the interaction of three spheres: the highly developed nucleus, the eternally poor periphery and the buffer semi-periphery. But in his opinion, the shortcomings of classical capitalism make inevitable the devastating crises that shake the world every 50-100 years.

According to Wallerstein, the shortcomings of the capitalist world order that has prevailed on the planet since the beginning of the 16th century can only be overcome in the framework of a new global system. The end of the 20th century marks such a historic turning point, a transition from the era of capitalism to a new structure of the world. Wallerstein leaves open the question, what will replace the world capitalist system.

What makes this line of reasoning attractive for theorists of ' globalization' is above all Wallerstein's idea that the world is a single system whose state is determined by the nature of interaction between the nucleus - meaning the West, of course -- and the periphery, that is, the countries of the former Third World and the 'buffer zone' consisting of countries that are raw materials and technological appendages of the West.

Karl Popper became widely popular in the West on account of his book, 'The Open Society and Its Enemies.' The gist of his argument is that human cognition is inherently imperfect, and absolute truth and the ideal model of society are beyond the reach of man. Popper openly claims that 'history has no meaning'. So he calls on mankind to be content with a form of social organization that is most open to modernization. In other words, the open society is a society that is at any time ready to sacrifice its historical values, cultural customs and spiritual traditions to 'life-improving' and technological innovations.

What makes the idea of an open society so attractive for theoreticians and practicians of 'globalization'? They hope it will provide the moral justification of their plans and help them find a universal principle that would provide a unifying value in the mosaic and contradictory world with its multitude of customs, traditions and religions. They are anxious to develop a mechanism that could 'digest' the individuality of peoples and states in line with a single standard of the new world order.

George Soros, a well-known speculator and champion of ' globalization' writes in one of his articles that the idea of the open society gives due [credit] to the merits of the market mechanism, while it does not idealize it. It recognizes the role of other, non-market values in society. On the other hand, he argues, this principle, recognizing the inherent diversity of our global society, provides an adequate conceptual basis for the creation of the necessary institutions.

What the famous billionnaire describes modestly as 'institutions' is actually a world system of political, financial-economic and military-strategic organizations which should become effective instruments in establishing the global dictatorship of financial tycoons.

The geopolitical aspect of 'globalization' has been thoroughly studied by Zbigniew Brzezinski, one of the architects of American foreign policy in the second half of the 20th century, a teacher and mentor of the current US National Security Adviser, Condoleezza Rice.

Brzezinski claims that the shortest way to a global world order is a total hegemony of the 'last superpower', the United States of America. The aim of US policy, he writes in his book, The Great Chessboard, should be two-fold: to strengthen its dominant position and to create a geopolitical structure to dampen the inevitable upheavals and tensions in the course of forced recarving of the world according to the templates of the new world order.

The earliest stage of such recarving, according to Brzesinski, should be the creation of the network of international links outside the traditional system of nation states. Already, he admits, that network consisting of international corporations is creating an unofficial world system for comprehensive cooperation on a global scale. Under the pressure of transnational corporations a new international legal framework is being created for legalizing the universal dominance of financial oligarchies, for their interference in the internal affairs of sovereign states that impede the establishment of such dominance.

The process of revision of the main norms of international law is in full swing. At the UN Millennium Summit held in September 2000 and attended by the leaders of 188 sovereign states, the UN Secretary General Cofi Annan said: 'Our postwar institutions were created for the international world, but we live in a global world. To effectively react to this change is the main institutional task facing world leaders today.'

And his predecessor as UN Secretary General, Butros Ghali, was even more candid. 'Today the task is not just to maintain peace among states,' he wrote in 1994. 'It is necessary to find the means to settle the differences that divide peoples inside their own states. These new challenges dramatically change the meaning the world community has until recently read into the concept of peace-keeping. Is it permissible for any state under the cover of its sovereignty to violate human rights on its territory? Can one still regard as states the territories in which there is no continuity of politics? This, in my view, suggests that interference to rectify the shortcomings of undemocratic states is the moral duty of the international organization.'

Iraq and Serbia provide vivid illustrations of the methods that will be used for 'corrective interference '. Russia and a number of other states have every ground for being worried that they may soon be put on that woeful list.

But as long as there are influential forces in the world that oppose such a development scenario, overwhelming US military and political might are necessary in order to block any attempts to oppose such a new world order. That stage in the building of the new world order will, in the opinion of Brzesinski, continue for several more decades before a functioning system of global cooperation gradually assumes the role of an international 'regent' capable of bearing the burden of responsibility for stability in the whole world. Such a global system will provide 'proper legitimization of the role of America as the first, only and last true world superpower.'

Jacques Attali, former financial adviser to the French President and the first head of European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, has presented his historical philosophy of globalization in the book, The Lines of Horizon.

His theory is that human history is all about successive change of social and economic systems that differ primarily in terms of their fundamental human values. In line with this theory, he singles out an era in which religious consciousness and its cult of the Holy was predominant. Then came the era of conquests with its cult of Might and the personality of the Monarch or Leader as the personification of Might. And finally, the era of trade and mutual exchanges which Attali describes as the Commercial System with its cult of money as a universal and absolute value.

Within this theory, the Commercial System is the highest and ultimate form of human development. Building on the fantastic achievements of science and new technology, it will at last unify the whole mankind in a global society that recognizes no national, state or religious distinctions. The new man born of the Commercial System will be free of any 'restricting influences' in the shape of national roots, cultural traditions, state or political bias or even permanent family ties. On the strength of this Attali describes the new civilization that will emerge as the result of the triumph of such a world order as the civilization of Nomads who are only linked with each other and with the world by universal financial ties. Eventually 'man will reproduce himself like a commodity and life will become an object of artificial fabrication and value.'

The ideological cover for the universal spread of the new world order is the fashionable concept of 'the end of history', proposed by the American professor Frances Fukuyama,whereby the present Western civilization in the form of a liberal democracy with its values of selfish individualism, 'the free market', and 'universal human rights', is the final stage in the development of human kind.

So, the philosophy of 'globalization' is based on the following main ideas:

Wallerstein's 'world system' approach presenting the human community as a system of interacting regions of 'the nucleus', the periphery, and the 'buffer zone';
The model of 'an open society' by Popper as a social mechanism of constant modernization, or rather, 'Westernization.';
US hegemony, Brzezinski-style, as the geopolitical basis of a new redivision of the world;
The commercial system of Attali as a civilization of money which ceases to be legal tender and becomes an absolute and universal value;
Fukuyama's thesis that this system is the highest point of history.

It will readily be seen that the western ' globalization philosophy' is aimed at preserving the western system.

Historically speaking, it boils down to an attempt to keep development within its former qualitative parameters at all costs. That is, to stop social development and literally 'kill' history. Globalization as it stands today has no alternative. This is its final word. Socially, it is aimed at smoothing over the contradictions and not at resolving them. Under this theory, contradictions between the advocates and the opponents of the globalization arose from a misunderstanding. The two sides to the argument speak about different sides of the same object: the former about the achievements of progress and the latter about its abuses. So, they should unite and not argue. Let the former promote scientific, technical and economic development and the latter seek to minimize its side effect. Those who do not understand it are simply retrogrades and enemies of progress. The question as to whether such an idyll is realistic is not even asked.

As for the purely scientific aspect of the problem all the terms and definitions invented by bourgeois thought to designate the process of globallization and its modern stage are reduced to a more or less detailed description of its external features. These are not definitions, but circumlocutions that do not solve the question about the essence of the process, its motive forces, its concrete forms and features.

C. The Essence of Globalization

Yes, globalization is an objective and necessary process that accompanies mankind throughout its history. On the other hand, it is a social process that takes the form of the activities and relations between the individuals, social groups, strata, classes, nations and civilizations. It is directly linked to their goals and interests. And this prompts a special methodology for its study which is only provided by the classic Marxist-Leninist theoretical heritage.

Lenin wrote that a Marxist 'does not confine himself to stating that a process is necessary', but finds out what social and economic system lends substance to the process, what social class determines this necessity. Elaborating on this thesis, Lenin drew a conclusion of supreme importance: the ways in which historical necessity manifests itself are 'inherently' diverse. History's main question is not 'to be or not to be', but 'how to be'. It does not know of a single and predetermined development. One and the same objective process may draw its content from different social and economic systems. One and the same necessity may be determined by different social classes and groups. So, major social problems can be resolved in different ways. Social struggle is over which of these ways is to prevail.

For instance, what are the modern global problems about? Are they phenomena arising out of 'progress in general' or are they connected with specific social relations? Bourgeois theorists of globalization studiously avoid and fudge this question. Why is modern industrial production so predatory and profligate, leading to a crisis of resources and the environment? Is it a feature of 'production in general' or is it because material production follows the market laws of deriving maximum profits, the laws of accumulation of capital that knows no bounds in its quest of self-growth?

Global problems are common to the whole mankind. But they have not been engendered by the whole mankind as a body, but only by a concrete social and economic system - capitalism, the group of the more advanced capitalist countries. Which brings us to the next dilemma: either the whole mankind will sweat it out on behalf of capitalism solving its problems at its own expense. Or capitalism will turn into a problem for mankind threatening its well-being and the very survival.

Take, for example, the phenomenon that confronted mankind only in the second half of the 20th century and whose existence is not challenged by anyone and has been recognized in the declarations of international forums, notably the UN Conference held in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. The essence of this phenomenon is that it is impossible to spread the Western model of production and consumption to the whole world because of the resource and environmental limitations. It follows from this indisputable fact that because the Western model cannot be realized on a global scale, mankind as a whole should look for some other mode of existence and development. Let us describe that hypothetical mode as 'sustained development,' a term as broad and neutral as globalization. But where do we go from here?

We find that one and the same indisputable fact can and does give rise to totally different, even diametrically opposite social and political conclusions. The concept of sustained development lends itself to very different interpretations.

One possible conclusion is that Malthus was right after all, that the law of diminishing soil fertility is incontrovertible and that the second rule of thermodynamics is universal. So, the solution may be to preserve the Western model of production and consumption only in the countries of 'the golden billion' while the rest of the world will have to make sacrifices. The theoretical basis for such a solution was laid back in the 1970s in the series of reports commissioned by the Club of Rome, an elite organization of businessmen and scientists. They formulated the concepts of 'limits to growth', 'zero growth' and 'organic growth'. They all boil down to imposing quantitative limits on the development of productive forces within the former qualitative, capitalist, framework. Thus, headlong bourgeois commitment in progress, the endless consumer race have as their down side a profound historical and technological pessimism as expressed in the concept of 'the end of history'.

Another possible conclusion is that the Western model of production and consumption should be overcome and dispensed with. Social progress should acquire a qualitatively new dimension. This is the alternative as painted in the Program of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (CPRF): 'As it enters the new millennium humankind has been confronted with the most dramatic choice in its entire history, the choice of the road of further development. There are only two variants corresponding to opposite social class interests.

The first is limitation or even the end of the growth of the world economy conserving the current structure of production, distribution and consumption. Its aim is to perpetuate the division of humankind into the 'golden billion' and the periphery it exploits, to establish the global domination of developed capitalist countries through 'the new world order'.

The second way is steady improvement of the well-being of the whole population of the Earth while preserving the global ecological balance through qualitative change of productive forces, the mode of production and consumption and humanistic reorientation of scientific and technological progress.

Thus, globalization is an ambivalent process with many variants. It can develop in different alternative ways. But it is impossible to understand these alternatives if one interprets globalization in the way it is done in modem Western literature. To understand this complex problem one has to turn to the classic heritage of the founders of Marxism-Leninism.

In accordance with historical materialism, the main and determining world trend at all the phases in the development of human society and the driving force behind its deeper and ever more comprehensive integration is the process of socialization of labor.

Marx and Lenin provided a thorough analysis of that category. We will try below to clarify some of its aspects in relation to the modern epoch. But in the meantime let it be stressed that the capitalist mode of production is making a big contribution to the socialization of labour. Moreover, capitalism itself creates prerequisites for the continuation of the same process in a different way that is free of the exploitation of man by man and class antagonism. As Lenin put it, 'socialization of labour which is accelerating in thousands of forms and manifests itself in the growth of large-scale production, cartels, syndicates and trusts of capitalists and gigantic growth of the size and power of financial capital - this is the main material basis for the inevitable advent of socialism.'

So, the most general definition of the totality of modem phenomena designated by the term 'globalization' is the capitalist form of socialization of labour which has reached world-wide scale. But there exist alternative forms of socialization of labour. In the modern era it can take place either in the form of ever more cruel subjugation of labour to capital or in the form of the liberation of labour from the power of capital.

The profound and world historic content of this alternative will become clear if one recalls that Marxism interprets the categories of labour and capital in a much broader way than in narrow economic terms. Labour is above all the generic feature of man, the mode of his existence, the mode of his development, both individual and social. Its essence is not just expending energy, but creativity. Thus, according to Marx, universal labour is 'any scientific labour, any discovery, any invention.' Capital is reified, dead labour which has acquired monetary value form and which subjugates living labour. The law of its development is limitless quantitative growth devoid of any qualitative certainty. Capital in principle does not care what kind of labour results in its own growth - the production of drugs or fabrication of narcotics, so the historical confrontation between labour and capital has a profound substantive character and covers not only economic, but practically all the key aspects of human life.

There is no and cannot be an alternative to the socialization of labour. But there was, is and will be an alternative to its capitalist form. 'Socialism as an internationalist doctrine,' notes the Political Report of the Central Committee of the CPRF to the 7th Congress of the Party, 'by no means denies world integration processes, the mutual intertwining of the economies, cross-pollination of cultures and interaction of original civilizations. But it provides a real alternative to the ugly forms world integration takes under capitalism.'

Capitalist globalization carries an embryo, the material possibility of transition to a new and more just social system. But for this possibility to become reality it should be freed of its present capitalist social shell.

Human history is at a fork in the road, and it is by no means proven that the world is doomed to develop according to the scenarios of the Western architects of the 'new world order'.

II. In the Vice of Imperialist Globalization

A. Is Capital Growing 'Kinder'?

In the past decade many in the West and in this country have said and written that in the 20th century, and especially during the globalization phase ushered in by the Second World War, capitalism has dramatically changed its nature. Allegedly, it is no longer predatory and exploitative in character, it has turned its face to man, to meeting his needs and increasingly serves 'the common good'. The prosperity in which the population of the 'golden billion' countries wallows is cited as proof. Show a little more patience and restraint, and capitalism in the whole world will acquire a 'human face' and everybody will be just as prosperous.

The Gaidars, Chubaises and Grefs habitually call us to be patient. But, let us face it, even the modern Russian patriotic milieu often draws a fundamental distinction between the ugly and anti-people 'savage' capitalism imposed on Russia by Yeltsin's regime and the 'civilized' Scandinavian capitalism which is thought to be on the verge of becoming a 'market socialism'. We will do our best to fight the former and welcome the advent of the latter.

What can one say? In many ways capitalism indeed is not what it was at the beginning of the last century? But why? One should take a careful look at it.

Lenin in his time noted that Russia, and indeed any other capitalist country, had two varieties of capital: democratic 'populist' capital and Black Hundred-Octobrist capital. I can't help quoting at some length from this place in his letter to Gorky (of January 3, 1911) because it is germane to our topic.

'...The only guarantee of the victory over capitalism is its own growth. Marxists do not support any reactionary measure such as banning trusts, limiting trade and so on. But to each his own: Let Khomyakovs and Co. build railways across Persia, let them send the Lyakhovs (Khomyakov was a major land owner and statesman and one of the architects of the colonial policy of tsarism in the East. Lyakhov was a colonel who took part in putting down the national liberation movement in Iran - G.Z.), and it is the business of the Marxists to expose them in the eyes of the workers. They are out to gobble you up, to strangle you and choke you, resist.

'Resistance to colonial policy and international plunder by organizing the proletariat, by protecting freedom for the proletarian struggle does not arrest the development of capitalism but accelerates it making it resort to more cultured, and more technically sophisticated methods of capitalism. There is capitalism and capitalism. There is the Black Hundred -Octobrist capitalism and the populist capitalism...

'The international proletariat is making inroads on capital in two ways: by turning it from the Octobrist kind into the democratic kind and by ousting the Octobrist kind of capital and transferring it to the savages. And this broadens the basis of capital and brings its death nearer. There is hardly any Octobrist capital left in Western Europe, almost all capital is democratic. The Octobrist capital has moved from England and France to Russia and Asia. The Russian Revolution and the revolutions in Asia = the struggle for ousting the Octobrist capital and replacing it with democratic capital and democratic capital = the last-born. It has nowhere further to go. After that it is 'kaput'.'

The last conclusion is theoretically impeccable to this day. It is another question, how and in what concrete ways that prophecy is being fulfilled. It is anything but automatic. Variants are possible but this is not surprising because, as Herzen said, 'iron falls and down flies governed by one and the same law'.

First, capital is becoming civilized only inasmuch as it is confronted with growing resistance, because struggle is waged against it and second, the fact that capital is getting a 'human face' in the Western world is directly linked to globalization, the transfer of the more brutal and inhumane forms of exploitation from the parent countries to the colonies and dependencies.

Capital has managed to some extent to become adapted to the changed conditions, has made significant concessions to the demands of the working class, without forgetting of course its own interests which it puts first. But while recognizing these changes one should not forget that it has not made them voluntarily. The change in conditions was above all the October Revolution in Russia and the upsurge of the struggle of the working people for their economic, social and political rights that it engendered.

Faced with mounting social protest and economic crisis, capital had two options before it and it tried out both. The alternative was most dramatically expressed in the course of the world economic crisis in the 1920s-early 1930s. At that time, President Roosevelt in the United States declared 'the New Deal' and Hitler set about imposing a 'new order', first in Germany and then throughout Europe

There were important differences of form between these two ways, but the substance was in many ways similar. Both were a reaction to the radical change of the world balance between labor and capital as a result of the October revolution. At the same

time, both ways involved greater state interference in the economy and both proved effective in terms of the functioning of capital. But Roosevelt was committed to compromise and concessions to the working people while Hitler to the 'tightening of screws'. In both cases concessions to the 'native' working class was compensated by the strengthening of exploitation in other spheres. And finally, and most importantly, the, expressed in their own ways the desire of various imperialist groups of the time to dominate the world, in fact they upheld their version of globalization.

So they were bound to be locked in mortal combat. But it is significant that the historical initiative no longer belonged to capital. It was up to the socialism that triumphed in Russia, and not up to capital to decide which way would prevail. It was the Soviet Union which made a powerful contribution to the victory over Hitler's German and erased the fascist alternative of the development of world capitalism. Thus our fatherland once again exerted a decisive influence on the course of history and saved the world from a calamity - from a world-wide victory of the Black Hundred, fascist type of capital. So capitalism claims no credit for the fact that it has acquired a 'human face in some countries. It is entirely to the credit of socialism that has provided a real economic, political and moral counterweight to capitalism.

Now that the counterweight has grown weaker, the fascist alternative has again reared its head and is trying to stand to its full height. One can see signs of this everywhere, and most notably in the growing aggressiveness of world imperialism in economics and politics. Capital is coming full circle.

All this proves that the classical Marxist-Leninist analysis of the fundamental trends of the development of capitalism is by no means outdated. The task of modern and creative reading of Lenin's theory of imperialism is becoming particularly relevant in the present conditions. It will give greater insight into globalization as a comprehensive historical process with its internal laws and distinctive features.

B. The New as Well-Forgotten Past ; features of classical imperialism

In his 1916 work 'Imperialism: the Highest Stage of Capitalism' Lenin singled out

five main features of imperialism:

1. Concentration of production and the growth of monopolies;

2. The merger of banking and industrial capital and the formation of financial capital as a result of this synthesis.

3. Export of capital that supercedes export of commodities.

4. Division of the world between imperialist powers and the beginning of the struggle for its redivision.

5. Parasitism and stagnation of capitalism at its imperialist stage.

Let us consider them in relation to the present state of affairs.

1. Concentration of production and the growth of monopolies

'Huge growth of industry and a remarkably swift process of the concentration of production at ever larger enterprises are one of the most characteristic feature of capitalism, in its highest, imperialist stage', writes Lenin. One need hardly say that throughout the 20th century that feature of modern imperialism has been growing more and more pronounced acquiring truly grandiose scale. Even major world monopolies which seem to have reached the limits of their growth continue to enlarge through mergers and takeovers. Among the more vivid examples of recent years are the merger of two oil giants, Mobil and Exxon, the expansion of General Motors which is penetrating into Japan and Europe where it has practically taken over Opel, Daimler Benz and Honda. Today 33 major companies of the world whose headquarters are in the US own 71.8% of all the equity traded in stock exchanges. In absolute figures this means almost 5 trillion dollars. The predecessors which were analyzed by Lenin at the beginning of the century could not dream of such power. World-wide five countries, the US, Japan, Great Britain, Germany and France account for 90% of major corporations on the planet.

Moreover, in recent decades the process of concentration of production and monopoly growth has acquired a new quality. In order to make production more effective they use rigorous centralized planning, and harsh administrative regulation and comprehensive social care of their workers. But the main thing is that in acquiring the functions originally inherent in the state the modern transnational corporations acquire more and more tangible features of sovereignty hitherto characteristic of national states. They are anxious to become the subjects of international law, they seek to legalize military structures acquiring their own armies and police disguised as security services and trying to infiltrate international political organizations under various guises. This trend threatens radical destabilization of the whole world political system. While in earlier eras the main subjects of world history were peoples and states, the new world order presupposes a totally different global structure of governance. 'Sovereign states with their borders and disparate laws, ethnic conflicts and wars impede free trade and so impede prosperity and progress. Down with state sovereignty! Long live the power of managers and bankers, and not politicians.' These are the main slogans of the new world order. According to its architects the global structure should rest on gigantic transnational corporations whose main principle is financial and economic efficiency. They will form the narrow circle of the new masters of the world who will come to replace the 'old-fashioned' states with their traditional values of sovereignty, national independence, cultural identity and historical continuity. 'We are talking about a new capitalist revolution', writes the influential French weekly, Le Monde Diplomatique, 'globalization reaches out to the remotest corners of our planet, disregarding state independence or differences of the political regimes. The world is living through a new era of conquest that has replaced the colonial era. But while formerly the main conquerors were states, now they are conglomerates, private industrial and financial groups which seek to decide the destinies of the world. Never has their circle been so narrow and so powerful.'

2. Concentration of capital and the formation of financial capital as the result of the merger of banking and industrial capital

'The development of capitalism has come to a point where the main profits are pocketed by the 'geniuses' of financial swindles,' writes Lenin. Banks go out of the modest role of mediators into all powerful monopolists disposing of practically all the capital of all the capitalists that turn thousands upon thousands of isolated businesses into a single national capitalist and subsequently world capitalist enterprise. Banks are growing to become institutions of truly universal character.'

Lenin predicted there one of the key features of modern globalization, the dominance of financial capital which has totally subjugated industrial or productive capital. Over the past century the importance of banks as financial regulators of the world economy has been constantly growing. And with the introduction of computers and the emergence of global information networks, such as the Internet, speculative capital has become firmly entrenched as the dominant force in practically all areas of human enterprise. In recent years the process of globalization of financial markets has been further accelerated. Now the fluctuation of exchange rates, interest rates and share prices in various countries is closely interconnected. Any changes in one of the segments of the market shape the whole system. By the start of the new century that process, like the process of concentration of production in transnational corporations also acquired a new quality. It is above all the self-sufficiency of major international financial groups. Money begins to reproduce itself bypassing the commodity stage. The burgeoning of virtual markets - financial and stock markets -merely accelerates such processes.

3. Large-scale export of capital

'For the old capitalism,' Lenin maintains, 'export of commodities was typical. For modern capitalism, with the domination of monopolies, export of capital has become typical. Countries which export capital nearly always have a chance to derive certain 'benefits'. The character of which sheds light on the nature of the era.'

That feature is at least as relevant today as it was in 1916. Export of capital increased many times over with the development of economic globalization. Moreover, with the growing might of transnational corporations it has become easily the key basis of their financial well-being. In the new global financial system it takes minutes to transfer huge amounts of capital from continent to continent. Today gigantic capitals easily move all over the planet acquiring unheard of mobility thanks to information networks. These capitals often settle far away from their owners.

But there is a certain regularity in what may appear to be chaotic movement. If one follows Lenin's logic, then by answering the question, what is the chief benefit pursued by modern exporters of capital, we will understand the specific nature of the present era. In general, the answer to the question is no. Many economists noted, back in Soviet times, that over the past decades the capital exported by the transnationals is invested in the world economy not randomly, but with a clear intent of creating a qualitatively new global scheme of international division of labour as soon as possible. That process accelerated many times over after the disintegration of the USSR. Today it is obvious that the main feature of the scheme is that the whole world is divided into several specialized and unequal economic zones.

The first includes the developed countries of the West and their strategic partners such as Japan, whose combined populations make up the notorious 'golden billion'. It is the metropolis in the new global colonial empire in which the main bodies of power and management will be concentrated. It will include 'highly organized spaces' in which power is measured by the amount of money, which has become 'the single equivalent, universal measure of every thing.' This is the picture drawn by one of the ideologists of globalization and the new world order, Jacques Attali in his book, Lines of Horizon.

According to his forecast, in the new world 'the most valuable property will be citizenship in the space of the dominant countries', which will become 'an object of purchase and sale in the free market of passports'. But the high level of consumption envisaged by the architects of the new world order for the 'golden billion' requires a huge volume of production of goods and services. The bulk of that industry will be concentrated in the so-called 'technological zone'. According to the strategists of globalization it should include 'second echelon' countries which will play the role of reservoirs of raw materials and assembly workshops ensuring the required quality of life for the inhabitants of highly organized spaces.

Finally, the third zone of the global division of labour will include 'economically unpromising' regions on the territories of which the 'golden billion' countries have no significant financial interest. They will be left to themselves, but only to the extent the this freedom does not affect the established world order.

In this case the main danger for world stability will be threats to the West's welfare on the part of peripheral 'low organized spaces' whose impoverished population, driven into a f nancial and economic ghetto, will become a perennial challenge to the strength and effectiveness of the new world order. The architect of the NWO expect to neutralize these threats through a global military political dictatorship. So, the main benefit modern exporters of capital derive is 'creeping' establishment of control over the world economy and of a new global scheme of international division of labour.

By the way, one can readily observe this from the way foreign capital exported by the West to our country behaves here. Today it is piously described as 'foreign investments in the economy'. But that does not change the substance of the matter. Let us see in what the West invests the money? What areas of the Russian economy it stimulates. And what goals it pursues in the process?

To be sure, there is nothing wrong with foreign investment as such. If it goes into the real sector of the economy and helps the social and economic development of Russia it can only be welcomed. But reality is far removed from this ideal scheme. Ten years of virtually uncontrolled development of a 'wild market' in Russia makes it clear that Western investments concentrate in three main areas: First, the bulk of it goes into financial speculations. Huge amounts of money change hands in this area even by Western standards. Western investors put an estimated 70 billion dollars into the GKO [Russian government short-term bonds] pyramid in 1998. And the people who played in the GKO market were not some marginal swindlers but major Western bankers and financiers. Deutsche Bank alone invested up to 40% of its assets in GKOs. Among other major participants in this affair were such world famous names as Chase Manhattan Bank, Merryl Lynch, Solomon Brothers and many others. The result of such investments is well known. The collapse of the rouble, four-fold growth of the dollar, and, accordingly, of the Russian foreign debt, almost total loss of financial independence of Russia and deepening internal economic crisis.

The second area of Western investments is extractive industries in Russia. They are all aimed at creating a well-functioning, Western-controlled mechanism for siphoning cheap Russian resources to the countries of the 'golden billion'. The result is that in the last seven years, according to official statistics, the most profitable Russian exports have been oil, gas, ferrous metals, ammonia, aluminum, copper, nickel, timber and wood.

The raw materials mentioned above account for three quarters of all the Russian foreign trade revenue. And the figure is growing year by year. Plans for the next 20 years envisage further increase, almost doubling, of gas supplies to Western Europe, more active joint development of the natural resources of Siberia and the Far East, the building of new oil pipelines and the creation of 'solid legal guarantees' for foreign capital in Russia. One can already tell what it will come to. Suffice it to look at Venezuela, which is in the top six oil exporters in the world. During the last 25 years that small country pumped 300 billion dollars worth of 'black gold' abroad. And what is the result? More than half of its citizens still live in poverty and a quarter of able-bodied population have no work. The third area of foreign investments is financing the processes of reducing Russian arms and expanding harmful enterprises such as radioactive burial sites and chemical industries. The Western interests in this area are obvious and need no comment. On the whole, one can say with full justification that the main aim of foreign investments in the Russian economy is to tie our country to the 'world economic system' and to include it in the new global scheme of international division of labour as the provider of raw materials and a technological appendage of the 'golden billion' countries.

4. Division of the world and struggle for redividing what has been divided.

This is the third feature of imperialism, according to Lenin. 'The era of modern capitalism demonstrates', writes Lenin, 'that certain relationships arise between the associations of capitalists on the basis of economic division of the world and side by side with this and in connection with this, between political associations and states which develop certain relations on the basis of territorial division of the world, the struggle for colonies, the struggle for economic territory.'

That observation is still relevant today. But the accelerating globalization of all areas of human activity - above all economics and politics - has made an inevitable imprint on the current stage of the struggle for redividing what has been divided. The first push was the destruction of the USSR followed by the collapse of the world socialist system. The main substance of that stage in the redivision of the world was global expansion of world imperialism led by the US and, as a consequence of such expansion, the shift of political power from legitimate structures - the governments of sovereign states - into the hands of informal leaders of the world economy gravitating towards exclusive international clubs such as the Bilderberg Club or the Trilateral Commission.

Today the world financial elite has come closer to gaining political power on unprecedented scale. The main danger of this lies in the fact that the world is going to be ruled by people who have not been authorized by anyone, have not been elected by anyone and are often little known, are not bound by any public obligations who have not presented society with any programs by which one can judge what their tue intentions are. A new aristocracy, called interocracy is emerging in the world, notes the French philosopher Alain Finkelrot. It is a narrow and closed circle of people. In it everybody knows everybody else. But for the others they are stangers.

5. Its parasitic character and stagnation, that is, slowdown of scientific and technological progress and the development of productive forces.

'Imperialism,' writes Lenin, 'is massive accumulation in a few countries of financial capital which as we have seen reaches 100-150 billion franks. Hence, an unprecedented growth of the class, or rather, stratum of people who live off their investments, people totally divorced from participation in any enterprises, people whose profession is idleness. The export of capital, one of the most essential economic foundations of imperialism, further strengthens the total divorcement of the stratum of rentiers from production and leaves an imprint of parasitism on the whole country that lives by exploiting the labour of several overseas countries and colonies.'

This is how one of the first students of imperialism, the English economist Hobson, assessed the prospects of parasitic development of imperialism exactly a hundred years ago: 'Most of Western Europe could then assume the look and character now displayed by parts of these countries: the south of England, the Riviera, the places in Italy and Switzerland frequented by tourists and populated by rich men, namely: a handful of rich aristocrats who receive dividends and pensions from the distant East, a somewhat larger group of civil servants and merchants and a still larger number of house servants and workers in the transportation industry and in the manufacturing industry. The main branches of industry would disappear and mass food products and semi-fabricated goods would flow as indemnity from Asian and African countries...These are the possibilities opened up by a broader alliance of Western states, a European Federation of great powers: far from advancing the cause of world civilization it could pose a gigantic danger of Western parasitism: isolate a group of advanced industrial nations whose upper classes get enormous indemnities from Asia and Africa and with their help keep large and tamed masses of employees and servants engaged not in the production of farm and industrial products, but in personal service or secondary industrial work under the control of the new financial aristocracy.'

One cannot but be amazed at the accuracy of this foresight considering that this was written a hundred years ago. But this accuracy is a sure sign that no qualitative change in the development of world imperialism has occurred in the last hundred years so, Hobson's forecast is coming true literally. One should note the specific mechanism with the help of which the 'golden billion' assures for itself unilateral advantages and the possibility to prosper at the expense of the rest of the world. It consists in imposing a dual economic order, one for themselves, and the other for all the rest.

The concentration of capital and socialization of labour objectively undermine market relations in the sphere of large-scale production. The modern world is noted for global regulation of the world economy, global taxes, the removal of state barriers in the way of free movement of capital, the subjugation of all the countries to the universal order dictated by the International Monetary Fund which determines the policies not only of the world markets, but of individual states. A bureaucratic organization of the economy is being promoted in the interests of the global elite which pursues only its own clannish interests and needs, while the rest of the world is seen as a means for satisfying them. All these features leave no room for a free market and free competition.

C. The Highest Stage of Imperialism

The countries of the 'nucleus' of capitalism - the US, Japan and other G7 countries witness the processes of centralization, the continuing formation of far-flung mechanisms of state regulation including scientific and technological progress, the development of planning and long-term forecasting technologies and establishing a more sophisticated structure of management. The most science-and technology- intensive industries that set the pace of economic growth and form the basis of modern production - aircraft building, rocket and space technology, telecommunications, nuclear energy, the gas industry- have no free competition of private owners. Practically everywhere there is competition among state structures which finance major parts of research and development work and private firms which work to develop cutting-edge technologies, and supranational state entities which work out development strategies and influences the process of competition. In spearhead areas of economic growth we see trends of concentration of capital, state power and intellect so powerful that it makes any talk of a free market ridiculous.

At the same time, an ultra-liberal model is imposed on the rest of the world which is little more than a regime of controlled chaos designed to conceal the mechanism of unfair exchange whereby the 'golden billion' exploits the periphery. This mechanism is based on price disparities, the possession and retention of intellectual rent by the developed countries and debts.

In the sphere of large-scale production market, commodity-money relations have been made a thing of the past by technology. But they are being foisted by the 'golden billion' on the oppressed countries to ensure a mechanism of unfair exchange which is another way of saying plunder. 'The free market' is no longer a natural environment required for economic development. It is now a special instrument for the exploitation of the periphery. On a global scale the market has become its opposite. Formerly a sphere in which equivalent exchange should take place, it has become a sphere that ensures non-equivalent exchange.

Thus imperialism can only be parasitic by slowing down social progress and artificially conserving the status quo which objectively eliminate market, commodity money relations. Lenin's thesis about imperialism as stagnant capitalism is vindicated again and again.

Admittedly, this thesis has provided the butt of countless jokes by stand-up comics. And indeed, isn't it ridiculous to speak about economic stagnation against the background of the feverish consumer race that has swept the West? But if one leaves aside the narrow-minded comical view, one is bound to admit that capital is steadily driving the productive forces of mankind into a dead end. It is a commonly known phenomenon that the monopolies buy up patents for various technical inventions not in order to introduce them in production, but with the opposite aim. This is the current practice too. But it is not just the patents are shoved under the rug.

The whole atmosphere of a frenzied race does not favour the search for other directions of development of productive forces. And the reasons for that lie deep in the nature of capital. Capital is an 'object' that has no quality. Quantity is its sole quality. So capital knows of no other form of development than linear quantitative growth. A million dollars is good, a billion is better, and a trillion is better still. Hegel called constant transgression of any limit achieved for any given moment bad infinity. Seeking such infinity is in fact not progress and not development but a mechanical adding of naughts. And it is a disaster when such development is artificially imposed on organic systems - be they social or natural - which do not tolerate purely quantitative development separate from qualitative improvement.

Capitalism which today dominates most of the globe has externally changed beyond recognition during the five centuries of its existence, but it has preserved intact its inherent qualities. 'Production in general' as an eternal and natural prerequisite of human life still takes the concrete historical form of the production of value and surplus value – capital.

And the main feature of the latter is that it has no qualitative measure and only seeks endless quantitative growth. This is the key point. The production of various human benefits, material and spiritual values, is governed by quantitative laws of the production of profit, that is exchange value which makes money the prime measure of all things and relations and determine the industrial character of the capitalist mode of production as well as the concomitant system of basic and superstructure values, priorities and goals, motives of economic and social behaviour.

They consist in the following: The wealth of society is identified above all with 'huge accumulation of goods' (Karl Marx) which are only useful if they can acquire the form of money. Social progress is seen accordingly as endless multiplication of the number and diversity of goods. Production is seen above all as universal exploitation of the physical and intellectual forces of man and the resources of nature. The dominant principle is 'what is possible theoretically must be put into practice by all means'. The effectiveness of production is assessed mainly in terms of quantity without taking into account the qualitative aspects - current social costs as well as the possible consequences for the environment and the life of the future generations. The individual is only an isolated 'social atom', a private owner constantly at war with everyone else. The natural arena and condition of human existence is the market of goods, manpower, capital, ideas etc.

All these features distinguish capitalism from the social and economic systems that preceded it. 'Among the ancients', wrote Marx, 'we do not encounter a single study of what form of land ownership etc is the most productive and creates the greatest wealth. Wealth is not the aim of production. The question that is always investigated is what mode of ownership ensures that the state has the best possible citizens?' In effect, this thesis is echoed by Max Weber who said that the capitalist pursuit of profit as an end in itself 'contradicts the moral views of entire epochs.' Having for the first time in world history separated the goals of production from the goals of man, capitalism has exerted a revolutionizing impact on the development of the productive forces and the emergence of the world system of the economy. But each new leap forward in this area simultaneously takes the contradictions of the capitalist system to a new level.

This was illustrated after the Second World War when a group of developed capitalist countries entered the stage of so-called consumer society thanks to the mobilization and merciless exploitation of the material, labour and spiritual resources of most of the world. At this stage maximization of mass consumption is as important a condition for the functioning of capital as maximization of production.

We are talking in effect about a new form of coercing people into hyper-intensive labour, a new mode of the functioning of capital which derives profit from constant reshaping of the consumer's tastes. Consumption, like all aspects of social being under capitalism is turned into fetish. Instead of being a natural function of the human organism it is turning into a ritual, a new 'sacred duty' of an individual whose social status depends on its zealous performance.

Coercion to work takes on a paradoxical form of coercion to consume effected through diverse manipulations, notably through advertising that imposes on man ever new needs in the material and spiritual spheres. Artificial, and often perverted, character of needs becomes the norm, rather than an exception because 'novelty for the sake of novelty' becomes the main quality of the good that overshadows the objective value of any object.

For an external observer not involved in this system of relations coercion to consume appears to be invisible and in any case far more attractive than need and underconsumption. And in the latter case he would certainly be right. Capitalism for the first time in history creates objective prerequisites for liquidation of hunger and poverty. But this is done in a form that further aggravates the alienated character of capitalist social relations. This is noted by all serious and honest thinkers whatever their political and philosophical views. Erich Fromm for example, ends his 'Revolution of Hope' with the following characteristic passage: 'A ghost wanders in our midst, but only a few people see it. It is not the former ghost of communism or fascism. It is a new ghost - a totally mechanized society aimed at maximum production of material wealth and its distribution controlled by computers. In the course of its emergence man, satiated and contented, but passive, lifeless and unfeeling, becomes more and more a part of the total machine. With the triumph of the new society individualism and the possibility to be left alone with oneself disappear, feelings towards other people will be given to a person with the help of psychological and other means or with the help of drugs '

Individual freedom increasingly becomes bereft of its true content and is reduced to the possibility to choose among hundreds and thousands of endlessly changing, but virtually identical types of one and the same good (candidate for president, TV soap opera, a pop culture product etc) within predetermined and rigid limits. But even that surrogate freedom for a minority still rests on the growing unfreedom of the majority. Superconsumption of the 'golden billion' living in the dominant capitalist countries is based on chronic underconsumption, relative and absolute impoverishment of the bulk of the world's population.

Imperialism arrests social development. It does so in sophisticated ways. First, it cultivates and embodies in practice the theory of 'limits of growth', 'zero growth' etc. Needless to say, only for the periphery and not for itself. Second, it artificially conserves the market environment by imposing it on the countries it exploits as a means to hold back their development. Thirdly, capitalism still puts the production of surplus value above the production of things and thus keeps it within its former qualitative boundaries, that is, within the linear quantitative growth framework. And this is obviously an impasse in terms of society and the natural environment. Finally, and fourthly, it impedes the development of genuine freedom and initiative. It.impedes the development of the individual as the main and essentially the only social wealth.

So, in line with Lenin's logic, the new world order as the ultimate goal of globalization can be described as the highest stage of imperialism. It reveals certain features not found in classic imperialism These features show its 'genetic' link to previous historical forms of capitalism, while emphasizing some new features.

The main features of the new world order, that is, imperialism of the globalization epoch, can be formulated thus:

l. Final enslavement of production and industrial capital by financial and speculative capital which has become self-sufficient and is able to reproduce itself, bypassing the commodity stage.

2. Market relations turn into an artifcially cultivated mechanism to ensure non-equivalent exchange, a shell that conceals extra-economic coercion and the plunder of entire countries and nations.

3. Perpetuation of a new global model of 'international division of labor' that aggravates many times over the injustices and glaring social inequalities on a planetary scale.

4. Rapid growth of the political influence of transnational corporations and financial and industrial groups claiming unlimited sovereignty and the role of a legal agent in the system of international relations.

5. The loss of control over the processes in the world economy on the part of national governments. Revision of fundamental norms of international law aimed at discarding the notion of state sovereignty and creating global power structures, the much touted World Government.

6. Information and cultural expansion as a form of aggression and destruction of traditional values. Spiritual uniformity at the lowest and primitive level.

7. Parasitic character. The main benefits from the introduction of high technologies and the pooling of resources are used by transnational corporations solely for their own interests consigning the rest of the world to inevitable poverty and degradation.

8. Stagnation and qualitative slowdown of technical progress.

Of late some Marxist scholars in this country have suggested that the present era of globalization vindicates the forecast made by Karl Kautsly about the possibility of capitalism entering the phase of 'ultraimperialism' which, as he wrote, 'will put in place of the struggle between national financial capitals among themselves exploitation of the world by financial capital united internationally.' This, according to Kautsky, could 'create an era of new hopes and expectations within capitalism.' For example, lead humanity to peace and disarmament.

Lenin at the time proved that these hopes were unfounded. But he did not deny that in line with that overall trend the ultraimperialist phase was possible: 'there is no doubt that development leads toward just one world-wide trust that absorbs all enterprises without exception and all states without exception.' But he stressed that 'development in this direction proceeds under such circumstances, at such a pace and is accompanied by such contradictions, conflicts and upheavals by no means only economic, but also political, national etc. - that before it comes to a single world trust and an 'ultraimperialist' world unification of national financial capitals imperialism will inevitably burst, and capitalism will turn into its opposite.'

That forecast has been vindicated in principle, albeit not without contradictions and zigzags. The currently fashionable talk about globalization as 'a new capitalist revolution' has no grounds. On the contrary, we see that capital is trying at any cost and by any means, and increasingly by violence, to prevent and stop the overdue change prompted by the modern level in the development of productive forces. What we see is merely quantitative growth in the social and economic framework and conditions that remain basically unchanged.

The relations of exploitation and all the accompanying contradictions have not been overcome under capitalism, but have merely changed their form and have moved into a different realm. While one can with some reservations speak about a blunting of social class contradictions in the 'golden billion' societies, on the international level the same contradictions have dramatically sharpened. They have been pushed into the realm of world politics and they now divide the world between the 'rich North' and 'poor South' just as dramatically as they used to divide the proletarian and his exploiter within an individual country. We have seen not a smoothing over but globalization of the contradictions of capitalism.

Indeed, only the transformation of imperialism into socialism can be a genuine qualitative change. Only on this condition are a genuine technological revolution and a genuine transition to post-industrial technologies possible.

A radical change of the existing capitalist model of production and consumption is necessary. The formation of a fundamentally new technological system, a new type of the productive forces of humankind. Overcoming the ideal of 'universal consumption' and the consumerist way of life. A further problem is the question of concrete forms and motive forces of such a transformation.

III. The Socialist Alternative

A. The Destiny of Russia is the Destiny of the World

'Either a new world order, a transnational dictatorship that confines four fifths of the Earth's population to economic and spiritual ghetto, or a restructuring along socialist lines. This is the choice.', says the Political Report of the CPRF Central Committee to the 7th Congress of the Party. 'Russia today is at the cutting edge of this choice. Like in the early 20th century world contradictions have dramatically come together in its fate.'

One need hardly say that there is no room for a single, strong and original Russia in the imperialist scheme of the global world order. It is in for new trials and tribulations and, if globalism triumphs, it is bound to disappear from the historical arena, to decline culturally and spiritually, to suffer a demographic disaster and collapse as a nation state. Those who are aware of it observe with dismay that the country has in recent years been drawn more and more in the processes of commercial ' globalization'. So far we have been cushioned against its dire consequences by the margin of strength surviving since the Soviet times. But it has practically been exhausted. It is time to move resolutely to change the situation, otherwise, the consequences of the mindless policies of the grim Yeltsin decade may become irreversible.

The coming years will see a veritable 'war of worlds' in which the original 'Russian world', a world of ideals and shrines, a world of centuries-old spirituality and the national tradition with its lofty behests of 'blessed are the needy and the seekers of truth', 'blessed are the merciful', 'love thy neighbour' will challenge the apocalyptic world of a cosmopolitan melting pot and liberal egocentrism, the world of omnipotence of money and bank interest rates, financial pyramids and speculation whose idol is the Golden Calf.

This has been recently sinking in even to our liberal intelligentsia. With the naive amazement of a girl in a finishing school who thought that children were born from kissing, they admit their mistakes in the pages of Nezavisimaya Gazeta: 'We did not realize that the West was interested only in the function of capital, but not in fostering a civilized form of society in Russia.' And they wax elegiac: 'in the conditions of globalization the civilizing mission of capital has been weakened, and so has its responsibility for creating civilized capitalism in the societies of the whole world.' The latter should be construed to mean that there used to be times when children were born from kisses, but now the reality is too dreadful to contemplate. It is up to the reader to judge whether these lamentations owe more to liberal stupidity or liberal hypocrisy.

The West has never been interested in anything but 'the function of capital'. Any object, including man, countries, peoples, cultures, only interest it as a 'function of capital', that is a means for increasing value. And 'civilization' in its stupid liberal sense - as a kingdom of humanity and virtue - has nothing to do with it. Capital would not stop at any crime, even at gunpoint if it is promised 300% profit. And this was written not by Karl Marx, as many think, but by T. Dunning, a very moderate English trade unionist in the l9th century.

'Either Russia will become mired in the Third World in which it is doomed to disintegration and disappearance or it will revive on a socialist basis: this is the stark choice today,' stated the 7th Congress of the CPRF. But this conclusion has not yet been adopted by everyone. In the patriotic milieu one can hear that socialism is unacceptable for Russia as an internationalist doctrine. In its extreme form this contention sounds like this: 'Socialism is just another variety of mondialism which is hostile to national and cultural identity.' This invites a closer look.

Indeed if one draws a formal and superficial comparison of doctrines one may have the impression that the advocates of imperialist globalization, the new world order and the advocates of the socialist and communist future for mankind preach similar values and ideals. Indeed, both systems emphasize the drawing closer together of peoples and the disappearance of state borders etc.

And no wonder: both ultimately proceed from the fundamental trends in the development of productive forces and the world economy that transcends national, state and cultural parochialism and isolation.

And yet there is a substantial and fundamental difference between imperialist mondialism and socialist internationalism. Because mondialism is based on the omnipotence of capital and internationalism on the omnipotence of labour.

A social economic system demonstrates its superiority over the proceeding system by delivering higher labour productivity. This is true, but this is not the whole truth. The mission of socialism is not to achieve higher quantitative indicators, but above all harmonious and lofty development of man, a change of the type and paradigm of social development, revision of habitual priorities, a change of direction of economic and social progress. It is in the epoch of globalization that takes the contradictions of capitalism to the level of contradictions between man and nature, including his own human nature that it becomes particularly clear.

B. The New Force

Imperialist globalization has substantially broadened the social base of opposition to the omnipotence of capital. One only has to be able to identify the features of that force on whose consciousness and organization the destiny of the whole planet depends. They are, first, the modern worker or, more broadly, the productive class. Second, the national liberation movements. Third, the movements that are struggling to save culture from the onslaught of crass materialism. The working class is changing as the character of productive labour changes. Our Party has repeatedly noted in its documents the main trends in the emergence of a new type of productive labour. In the course of scientific and technological progress as production becomes more science-intensive, becomes automated and robotized, and flexible the creation of material wealth increasingly comes to depend not on the application of labour and its duration but on the power and scale of the flows of substance, energy and information organized and actuated by labour. Ultimately, on the degree to which society and the individual aided by science, master natural and technological processes. Productive labour becomes primarily intellectual. That is why 'the development of the social individual' (Marx) becomes the main basis of production and wealth. Accordingly the structure of investment changes. Investment in the human being comes to the fore- in education and upbringing, in science and culture, social security and health. So social wealth is measured not in terms of working time and the exchange value created during that time, but by time saving, that is leisure time as the space required for constant and allround development of the individual.

A change in the character of labour implies ever greater role of creative motives and stimuli. Labour gradually ceases to be a necessity or a chore within the bourgeois horizon drawn by the Protestant ethic, and becomes an end in itself. It acquires an independent consumer value as a natural mode of existence of the healthy organism that most corresponds to human nature, the process of development and use of creative abilities of the individual.

With the change of the character of labour the times when production needed a worker who was a 'cog in a wheel' are receding into the past. In modern advanced areas the role of intellectual labour is steadily growing. Research and development, information and software support become an inalienable and often the leading part of production. Representatives of the scientific and technical intelligentsia are swelling the ranks of productive workers. On this basis a new advanced nucleus of the working class is gradually taking shape which includes both manual and intellectual workers. They are united by scientific organization of labour and conscious discipline, modern technological processes that require a high degree of coordination of labour activities, constant creativity and high professional training and general standard of culture.

The modern advanced class is the engine of social progress and proponent of the interests of the whole people. They are first the producers of substantive, high technology and science intensive product (hardware) - scientists, designers, technologists, managers, skilled workers whose labour is primarily by brain. Second, [they are] producers of non-material product (software) that ensures the functioning of production and information system and the social infrastructure. In the activities of this group of workers science, knowledge and a high level of individual development of the worker are the leading productive force and thirdly, [are] all those who ensure reproduction of man as the subject of work and social life - teachers, doctors, producers of services in the growing leisure sphere, etc.

Today their work absorbs the main production investments - investments in man and his individual development. So, they are productive workers in the full sense of the word. In effect we see the formation of a new working class - the working class of the 21st century.

To be sure it will be some time before all the strata and representatives of the working class achieve the level of its most advanced unit, but it is this unit that is the true pointer to the real strength and historical possibilities of the working class as a whole. Further expansion of this leading nucleus which has features of workers in a classless society, the replenishment of its ranks with ever new categories of working people, the development of its best and inherent qualities, and gradual expansion to take in the whole of society will essentially mean the process of getting rid of class divisions. The Communists see this unit as its main social base. It is to this unit that they address their ideas seeking to foster its awareness and a commitment to pursue its class interests on the national and international scale. 'This vanguard social force', says the Program of the CPRF, ' holds in its hands the destiny not only of Russia, but of the whole human civilization in the 21 st century.'

The relationship between this new class and capital throws into bold relief the fact that exploitation has two aspects: the material and the humanitarian or the spiritual. Globalization reveals a huge area of spiritual exploitation of labour by capital. After a worker reaches a certain level of individual prosperity it becomes clear the spiritual impoverishment is no less real than a material impoverishment. Becoming an appendage of global information networks is no less destructive of the individual than becoming an appendage of a machine. Even more horrible and destructive for the individual is to become a 'consuming machine', a docile link in the 'money-commodity-money' chain of capital turnover. In this chain only capital is alive while man is only alive because he is needed as a link in the capital turnover chain. Enormous efforts are exerted to hide from man this second aspect of exploitation. This accounts for the gigantic machine of sophisticated programming of human behaviour. Instead of educating the individual there is manipulation of the consciousness and needs of people through commercial advertising and PR technologies. Instead of systematic education there is training in a narrow professional field and mass production of a 'one-dimensional man'. Instead of lofty art there is primitive mechanized show business. Personal, cultural and national uniformity. This is information and cultural imperialism. Intellectual and spiritual unification to bring everything to a primitive common denominator. Spiritual production wilts on the capitalist soil and on the contrary its diverse surrogates ranging from occultism to Herbalife flourish. The threat to spiritual and creative independence and self-determination of the individual acquires a planetary character.

A new form of capitalism's struggle for world domination is the struggle of the 'universalists' of all stripes against national individuality of peoples, the struggle of liberalism against historical Tradition, the struggle of a handful of international financial tycoons against the sovereignty and independence of national states. In his 'political testament' Lenin linked the victory of socialism with the victory of the national liberation struggle for the oppressed peoples.

C. The Experience of Early Socialism

At the dawn of Soviet power Lenin kept repeating that one could and should 'learn socialism from the organizers of trusts'. From the economic point of view socialism is a capitalist monopoly put in the service of the whole society, controlled by society and which therefore has ceased to be capitalist. But that is still not enough, it is just an elementary material prerequisite for a new society. Any monopoly inextricably linked with unification and is fraught with the possibility of economic stagnation, social decay and political totalitarianism.

The anti-utopias of Orwell, Huxley, Zamyatin and many other less gifted authors paint a picture not of socialism, but of state monopoly capitalism transferred into the future and carried to the point of absurdity. Unfortunately the same features were manifested in the practice of socialist construction because of a number of historical reasons. And ideologues took on board the idea, first proposed by A. Bogdanov, one of Lenin's irreconcilable opponents, to the effect that 'an ideal model' of socialism is 'a large capitalist enterprise viewed in terms of its labour techniques'. But they overlooked Lenin's express warning that 'this factory discipline that the proletariat will spread to the whole of society after vanquishing the capitalists and overthrowing the exploiters, is by no means our ideal or our final goal, but merely a step necessary for further movement forward.'

Eventually all this tended to block the main material and moral basis of socialism, the social energy and initiative of working people, free organization of the people and resulted in growing elements of economic and political alienation.

Later, when the task of ensuring the country's survival had been successfully solved and the task of developing socialism on its own basis was tackled another crude simplification of the socialist idea occurred. The basically correct slogan of 'meeting the growing needs of working people to the maximum degree' remained an abstract idea of human needs and their links with the mode of production that was unconnected with real history. What was overlooked was that most human needs are not given by nature, but are molded by society and are determined by the level of a person's ability and serve the individual in furfilling his or her potential in the surrounding world.

Unless understood in this way the communist principle 'from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs,' coincides with the bourgeois ideal of 'superconsumption' and is rendered totally meaningless. Public wealth and progress were identified with the bourgeois form of 'huge accumulation of goods' and endless proliferation of goods. So in practice the main thrust of the Third CPSU Program adopted in 1961 was reduced to the task of uncritical copying of the Western consumer society on the same production and technological basis. That doomed socialist economy to be an eternal loser in the race. And on the other hand, it deprived the two other tasks proclaimed in the Program of an adequate economic basis. These tasks were the formation of new social relations and the fostering of the new man and they were approached as exclusively 'ideological' and therefore insoluble tasks.

So Lenin never stopped at 'learning socialism from organizers of trusts'. He constantly stressed and argued that one should learn communism not from the 'organizers of trusts' but from the experience of the whole world culture. By developing it, creating higher and richer forms of communal life than the 'consumer society' by overcoming the bourgeois mentality.

If we really want to learn communism from the experience of the whole world culture, the highest achievements of science it is our duty to move forward, to profoundly study a number of new factors and trends that have manifested themselves in the second half of the century. Lenin's definition of imperialism as the highest and last stage of capitalism remains unassailable. But the modern situation is not totally described by these definitions. Our time presents us with the imperative of creative development of theory. Of creating an effective scientific methodology to assess the modern state of humanity.

The upsurge and collapse of the world socialist system, the masking of class contradictions in the developed capitalist states, the shift of social tensions to the geopolitical axis 'North-South', the universal upsurge of national and religious self-consciousness of peoples - all these facts are crying for a scientific explanation and, accordingly, a renewal of our ideology. We have no right to again fall in the trap of the dogmatic approach which has at one point nearly killed our Party, which proved to be ideologically helpless when confronted with dramatic historical change. So, if we want to survive in the rapidly changing world of the 21st century we have to creatively develop the heritage of Marxism-Leninism.

Thus, it is obvious today that Russia does not suit the architects of the new world order not only as the main proponent of the socialist way of development that is an alternative to capitalism, but, more broadly, as an ancient and original civilization with its own system of spiritual, moral, social and state-political values. It is obvious that Western strategists see as a major obstacle in the way of globalization the Russian people with its thousand-year-old history, with its precious national qualities of sobornost (togetherness) and derzhavnost (commitment to the strong state), with its profound faith, abiding altruism and rejection of the commercial enticements of bourgeois liberal democratic 'paradise'. It is obvious that the latest Western strategy for gaining world domination is being formulated within the geopolitical doctrines based on juxtaposing the 'oceanic empire' of the US and the Atlantic big space to the 'continental power' of Russia which still controls the Eurasian 'heart of the world'.

This means that we should enrich Lenin's method of analysis of the new world economic order with two important aspects which have already proved their effectiveness in recent years: the geopolitical and civilizational. In fact, they were used by Lenin himself. Thus, his widely known words to the effect that 'imperialism leads to the strengthening of national oppression', and that 'the aspiration of a monopoly to dominate' is accompanied by 'the exploitation of an ever larger number of small nations by a handful of the richest nations' accurately describes the modern picture of aggressive expansion of the 'golden billion' countries which are getting rich at the expense of the rest of mankind. Or, to put it in other words, the expansion of the West which is using every trick in the book to impose on other civilizations and peoples of the Earth its selfish model of a new global world order.

Thus the concepts of 'civilization', 'geopolitics', 'national identity', 'traditional values', 'religious holies', the cultural-historical type, 'sobornost', 'derzhavnost' and many others should become to us as basic and indisputable as the classical concepts of 'productive forces', 'class struggle' or a 'social economic system'. Only then shall we be able to create a serious scientific and methodological base corresponding to the realities of the present world capable of becoming a powerful weapon in the preparation of the comprehensive strategy for the revival of the Great Russia.

Then it will become clear that what happened at the end of the 20th century was not the collapse of socialism as such, but the disintegration of one of its concrete historical forms which turned out to be excessively monopolized and beholden to dogma and therefore ill-equipped to tackle tasks in the context of rapid world change. That a new and more effective form of socialism is already maturing before our eyes in spite of the fierce opposition of its persecutors.

In short, the synthesis of Lenin's methodology and the heritage of the best of Russian thinkers should provide the basis of modern Russian socialism and guarantee the revival of our beloved Russia, the great socialist power.

D. Ways to Achieve a Breakthrough

Socialism can regain initiative only if it dramatically reorients the productive forces towards a qualitatively new road with emphasis on planned development of the latest trends of scientific and technical progress. The CPRF Program calls this road 'optimal socialist development'. The key methodological principle for the analysis of changes was the concept of the technological mode of production thoroughly developed by Karl Marx in his 'Capital', especially in the preparatory notes for it, which for a long time were out of the purview of scholars. According to Marx, any socio-economic system only takes final root when it creates productive forces and means of labour which make the production relations characteristic of it not only a social, but also a technological truth, that is, [when the system] acquires corresponding material production and technological bases. The main issue, consequently, is on what technological basis will socialism develop and whether such a basis is being formed at present. The CPRF Program maintains that this is precisely what is happening at present.

The modern global situation dictates to humanity the task of ensuring a just and harmonious development by overcoming the wasteful character of the industrial civilization; by passing on from the principle of universal exploitation to the principle of universal saving - the natural environment, material resources and labour. The possibility of such a change rests in the objective trends of the development of productive forces. In the approaching new revolution of productive forces, the transition from industrial to post-industrial technologies.

But the ongoing change in the ratio between material and personal factors of production that put to the fore man as the main goal of production are increasingly at odds with capitalist form of progress and call for a qualitative transformation of the prevailing forms of production, distribution and consumption. Humanized consumption as a function of all-round development of the individual should replace the socially unjust consumer race which is devastating nature and destroying the human individual, 'superconsumption' as a function of the production and circulation of capital. On the other hand, natural environmental limits dictate to society a strategy of rational economy, of reducing the expenditure of material resources and energy per capita. And that in turn will inevitably require that material consumption should be increasingly social in character. This means that society undertakes to ensure for each of its members a stable and dignified level of individual consumption and personal comfort while at the same time a rising and ever more diverse level of consumption in the social, collective sphere. The solution of this task implies a profound change of the entire infrastructure of daily life, a new stage in the development of the systems of public transport, communications, information, health, nutrition, the creation of a dense network of centers of education, creative activities and leisure, clubs, theatres, parks, stadiums, museums, libraries etc.

Our Program attempts to give a general outline of the post-industrial technological basis of the society of optimal socialist development proceeding from the analysis of modern trends in the development of science and technology. The main fundamental change should take place in the relations between production and nature to overcome many environmental contradictions and limitations. Its essence is to reunite the production and nature restoration processes, which are separate today, in a single technological process built in an organic way into living and inorganic nature. (farming comes closest to this). Production should become similar to the processes of life. And thereby the meaning of man's labour activity should change radically. It consists in this, that while up until now nature appeared to be an eternal and inexhaustible basis of labour (the industrial type of technology) now, on the contrary, labour should become the basis for the preservation and reproduction of the natural environment (the post-industrial type of technology).

The main criteria of production effectiveness is security as the overall quality of man-machine systems in all its technical, ecological, ergonomic, social-psychological and cultural-moral aspects.

Conveyor belt mass production gives way to flexible automated production which makes it possible to individualize it, to customize goods to suit concrete demands.

The resource of technological systems is increased by building in the possibility of continuous modernization. This will address the acute problem of obsolescence and save a lot of production cost. On the basis of improved transport and telecommunications systems rational deconcentration of productive capacity and deurbanizaiton of the human environment takes place.

The following will be the jumping off ground for a technological breakthrough:

further improvement of the systems of automated management of production and technological processes, accumulation processing and transfer of information (microelectronics, optical fiber technology, large and global information networks and artificial intelligence);

mastering new sources of energy and means of its accumulation and transmission (controlled thermonuclear synthesis, high temperature superconductivity),

mastering new methods of processing raw materials and manufacturing (coherent radiation with high density energy flow, cryogenic technology);

mastering new natural processes (microbiotechnology, fine chemistry).

Technological progress, in its social and economic dimension, coincides with the process of real socialization of labour, that is the strengthening of its collective character, growing interconnection between different industries and their increased manageability. Socialization of labour is 'the main material basis of the inevitable advent of socialism', of putting an end to private property and overcoming the market element on the basis of planned regulation of production to make it serve national and global goals, to social control.

Political transformations in the interests of working people, the establishment of the state power and public ownership of the means of production accelerate this process and lend it a conscious and planned character. At the same time historical experience attests that uneven and diverse technological processes and the inevitable technological diversity mean that economic diversity will remain for a protracted period. There will remain diverse forms of property: public, individual, and at some levels private property and their competition on the basis of commodity-money relations. The tendency of early socialism to legally socialize (nationalize) sectors of the economies that are not ripe for socialization may exert an economic and social impact no less negative than artificial preservation of private ownership in those sectors which have got rid of it in terms of organization and technology.

This makes one revise the traditional idea of a quick transition to 'full', developed socialism. Stable development of the economy mandates that the level of legal socialization of production should correspond to the level of its actual organizational and technological socialization. They form two reciprocal processes and require that the state should seek to maintain a reasonable balance between them. But the key role in effecting a breakthrough to post industrial technologies and sustained development society will be played by the high technology and science-intensive socialized sector of production regulated by the state in which power will belong to the working majority of the people.

* * * *

Conclusion

In this work we have touched mainly on technical-economic and social class aspects of the alternative socialism can and must offer to imperialist globalization. But the problem is of course broader than that. It affects practically all aspects of relations among states, peoples, nations and civilizations. They present further research challenges. New methodological approaches should be brought in and the results of interdisciplinary studies should be used.

But the main approach leaves no room for doubt. Humanity is objectively and steadily moving toward closer and all round unity, and this is not the result of anyone's good or ill will. It is an obvious and indisputable fact and a positive fact. Any attempts to reverse this movement and revive isolationism should be judged reactionary. A solution should always lie ahead and not behind.

But it is by no means immaterial for the destinies of mankind and of homo sapiens what road it will take toward such unity. Whether it leads to further subjugation of labour to capital or the liberation of labour from capital, to making labour a natural need of man. Whether it leads to unity in diversity, to an association 'in which free development of all is the condition of the development of each' or to unity in uniformity, a regimented world into which the power of capital is driving man and humanity. Whether it leads to the establishment of the power of a narrow circle of people or democratic interaction and cooperation among sovereign countries and peoples. It is here, in the realm of the most general and profound philosophical issues that the world social economic, political and spiritual struggle is unfolding. And its outcome is far from being predetermined.

"Pravda" 11 32, 33, 34

March 23, 27, 29, 2001.