Hospodářské soutěžení socialismu a kapitalismu v letech 1950–1962 a jeho další perspektivy (Oblast průmyslové výroby)

The historical conditions of the capitalistic development, in the first place the effects of the law of uneven economic and political development, were on the one hand the cause of the fact, that the economic potential has been mostly concentrated in a certain number of the most developed capitalistic countries, on the other hand those historical conditions were the cause of the fact that the objective and the subjective conditions for the realization of the socialist revolution were created in countries which were in the economic sense on an inferior level of economic development than the advanced capitalistic countries. After the realization of the socialist revolution a contradiction arises between the most advanced relations of production and a level of productive forces which is lower than that one reached by the leading capitalistic countries. The main economic task of the socialist countries is the building up of communism, based on a higher degree of development of productive forces than that reached by capitalism. The existing contradiction is therefore being solved in the conditions of coexistence of socialism and capitalism and, as far as the socialistic countries are concerned, by the way of the economic emulation between socialism and capitalism, this emulation being an objective historical process, a special form of the class struggle which goes on between the two systems. The content of the historical competition between socialism and capitalism is expressed in the historical task “to overtake and surpass the leading capitalistic countries on the field of economy”. It is a partial aim in relation to the principal economic task, it is an Intermediate stage in the building up of communism. It is not the decisive criterion of the development of the socialist society, but it is one of the historical conditions in which the building up of communism is being realized. Its political and economic importance is however a very great one. Its achievement will mean that socialism will prevail over capitalism in the decisive domain of human society, In the economic domain. This will signify a historical turning point which will exercise a powerful influence on the international labour movement, on the development of the socialist world revolution, on the perspectives of a transition of the world to communism. Since the general formulation of the historical task of “overtaking and surpassing”, emphasized by Lenin in 1917, the theoretical elaboration of its content went through by several degrees. Each concrete definition of the aim of economic emulation had its historical reasons. It contributed to the need of the practice to put in concrete forms the content of the economic emulation by fixing partial aims on the given stage of evolution of the socialist world revolution and of the building – up of socialism and communism. “To overtake and to surpass” the capitalistic countries doesn’t mean to create a mechanical copy of the capitalistic economy. One must take into consideration the entirely different formation of needs in socialism and in capitalism, the different structure of national economy, the natural conditions, the living customs and traditions, the tendencies of long term developments, the attained degree of international division of labour a. s. o. The alm of the economic emulation consists in surpassing the leading capitalistic countries as far as the level of output is concerned, as well as the level of national wealth (accumulated material goods). This supposes the surpassing of capitalism as far as the level of productive forces is concerned and as a consequence of it the attainment in socialist countries of a higher standard of living, both in the quantitative and in the qualitative respect, than is the standard of living in the main capitalistic countries, all that in accordance with the principal economic task, that means with the building up of communism. It is necessary to overtake and surpass the most developed capitalistic countries. That doesn’t signify to surpass the peak record indexes relative to some kinds of production in certain countries. The most developed capitalistic countries are the USA, the German Federal Republic, Great Britain, France and Japan. Among those countries, the USA surpass all the other ones, they represent the economic summit reached meanwhile by capitalism. They succeeded in this owing to extremely favorable natural and historical conditions. To surpass the standard of the USA means practically to surpass the standard of capitalism. The economic competition of socialism and capitalism comprises, as a historical process, two great periods: the period of competition between one socialist country – the USSR – and the entire capitalistic world system and the period after the end of the second world war, the period of the competition between the two economic world systems. The periods in question are characterized by a series of quantitative and qualitative changes and they include a lot of partial stages with concrete partial tasks. The historical task of “overtaking and surpassing” applies first of all to the entire socialist world system. The socialist world system has at its disposal all the natural and social conditions necessary to the fulfilment of this task, because it unites the economic potential of the single socialist countries in order to achieve the most effective utilization of their potentials. The individual countries (excepted the USSR) don’t have such possibilities and they are fulfilling their “own historical task” within the socialist world system. As the single socialist countries are not equally developed as far as their economies are concerned, the fulfilment of the historical task in question is also realized gradually. The economically most developed countries (the USSR, the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic, the German Democratic Republic) are competing already immediately with the standard of the principal capitalistic countries. The other countries create meanwhile by their construction conditions for equalizing the economic level of the leading socialist countries and they compete with the standard of the other capitalistic countries. The economic results attained in the economic competition between socialism and capitalism are constantly followed and appraised by means of different analytical methods. One of the mostly used is that of comparison, which meats, however, with a series of methodical difficulties. The results of the comparison must be trusty, matter of fact, by objective and they have to be concentrated on the main items of the problems. The results are reflecting the regular tendencies to substitute capitalism by socialism on a world wide scale, they are reflecting the level and the tendencies in the development of the national economy as well as of Its single branches, the actual economic maturity and force of the different countries a. s. o. Therefore, a very hard struggle is going on between the bourgeois and the Marxian science, having for its object the methods of comparing the economic results. The comparison of economic results of the economic emulation cannot be apprehended by a unique “synthetic” index, but only by a whole system of indexes, possessing a sufficiently wide economic content. Such a system must involve some general as well as some concrete indexes, extensive and intensive, quantitative and qualitative ones. It depends on the aim followed by the investigation what system is to be applied, the aim implicating a historical point of view. The basis of the system in question is represented by the relations of expanded reproduction, classified according to the needs of the respective analysis. The more detailed the system of indexes is, which can be established, the better it is possible to compare the economic results achieved by socialism and by capitalism in their economic emulation. There exists a series of the mentioned systems of indexes. Among the basic indexes which are later specified by means of partial indexes, never are to be missed the index of the volume of industrial output, of the output corresponding to one inhabitant, the indexes of the standard of living, of the productivity and effectiveness of labour, of the utilization of the economic potential and of the national wealth, of the rate of development a. s. o. The further part of the study in question deals with concrete materials concerning the economic competition of the two world systems during the years 1950–1962 in the domain of industrial production. The article traces the historical evolution of the proportion of socialism in the territory and in the population of the world, it demonstrates the increase of economic strength on the example of the production of basic industrial products, expressed in kind, and it quotes the proportion of socialism in the world production of basic industrial products. A very important part of the study is dealing with the determination of the proportion of socialism in the world industrial output, expressed in the form of value. The author traces further the historical development of the attempts tried in this respect by different institutions, from the year 1928 up to the present time and he concentrates his attention first of all on to difficulties of determining the weights in the volumes of the systems as far as the different countries are concerned. The author displays the weights of different capitalistic and socialistic countries, the dynamics of their industrial development and he calculates on that basis the dynamics of the world industrial development and the structure of the industry of the world. On the basis of all these indications an attempt is made to determine the proportion of the principal countries in the world industrial output, both as far as the absolute volume of output is concerned as the output corresponding to one inhabitant. After having effected the evaluation of the basic statistical indications concerning the development of the economic emulation between socialism and capitalism up to the present time, the author passes to brief estimations of future developments. He takes into consideration the natural resources and the economic potential of the socialist system, he evaluates the factors which accelerate the solution of the respective tasks. On the basis of an extrapolation of the presumed rates of growth of both systems in several variants the author proves that socialism will attain in the year 1970 more than one half and in the year 1980 nearly two thirds of the world’s industrial output (as far as agriculture is concerned, the tasks will be fulfilled even earlier) and that socialism will hereby reach an absolute superiority over capitalism in the domain of material production. The study contains also evaluations of probable volumes of output of the principal industrial products in the socialist system in the years 1980, as well as anticipatory studies on the structure of the world’s population in the year 1980. The pacific content of the coexistence between socialism and capitalism, the economic competition, has reached already a stage, when not only the aim is fixed to overtake and surpass economically the leading capitalistic countries, but when already the terms are roughly known, when these tasks are to be fulfilled. The economic emulation, as one of the historical conditions of the building up of socialism and communism, represents the main content of peaceful coexistence between states with different social and economic structures, it is in contradiction with the tendencies of starting a new world war and it creates certain rules of coexistence between socialism and capitalism. The struggle for economic emulation, for the development of economic, cultural and other contacts between socialism and capitalism, is a part of the total struggle for the maintenance of peace and for averting war. The course things task hitherto, as far as the economic competition is concerned, persuades us, that the time is very near, when socialism will surpass capitalism economically and when, leaving capitalism far backwards, it will continue its further development towards communism.