The social system grows rigid but the productive forces continue to expand, and conflict ensues between the forces of production and the social conditions of production.
Socialism is nothing more nor less than the social, political and ideological system which breaks the fetters upon economic growth created under capitalism and opens the way to a new period of economic and social expansion on a much larger scale.
This radical transformation of world power relationships reflects primarily in the case of both the USA and the USSR the growth of the productive forces.
I knew I could not maintain that leadership in open struggle against Moscow influence. Only two Communist leaders in history ever succeeded in doing this - Tito and Mao Tse-tung.
The American Communists had thrived as champions of domestic reform.
The stage of the development of the productive forces determines the political and ideological superstructure of society which are crystallized into a system of social organization.
But I made no efforts to organize my supporters to hold on to the apparatus. Consequently I was soon expelled and my followers, who did not change coats overnight, quietly left or were expelled from the party.
Because capitalist society has expanded the productive forces so enormously, the social conditions under which it arose lag behind and become fetters holding back the further growth of productive forces.
I have opposed the Communist cold war line ever since, both by public utterance and by private help to trade unionists breaking free from the Communist influence.
Marxism conceives of the new system of socialism as the necessary outcome of all previous history made possible and necessary only by that previous history.
Marxism is an interpretation of history which explains the progress of society as a product of the expansion of the forces of production of the material means of life, that is, the development of economy.
What remains constant for me, during the last 15 years, has been the conviction that the cold war was a calamity for the entire world, and that it can be justified by no consideration of theory, nor by any supposed national interest.
