V.G. Afanasyev on the role of scientific organization in Marxism–Leninism:

Marx wrote: "All combined labour on a large scale requires, more or less, a directing authority, in order to secure the harmonious working of the individual activities, and to perform the general functions that have their origins in the action of the combined organism, as distinguished from the action of its separate organs."

Management of production, direction of the economy is one of the principal types of social control. The other is socio-political guidance, regulation both of relations between human communities (classes, social groups, national entities, separate bodies of people) and relations within these communities. It is regulation of the social behaviour of people.

With the emergence of society there took shape within it two types, two mechanisms of social control—spontaneous and conscious—and these have been operating to this day. In the former case the ordering, regulating influence on the system is the average result of the interplay of diverse—and often opposed—forces, of a mass of accidental individual acts. An influence of this kind forces its way through blind chance as a general tendency; it takes its course automatically and requires no human interference.

The mechanism of spontaneous control can be seen from the effect on the capitalist economy of the vagaries of the market, of the random play of numerous acts of selling and buying, underlying which, as a tendency, is the law of value. It is the spontaneous play of market forces that is the main controlling force of production, regulation of the social division of labour, and establishment of certain proportions in the economy, which, also by a freak of chance, are upset and set up again, and so on.

Along with the spontaneous, unprogrammed factors conscious factors of control stemming from man's purposeful activity operate in society (again, at any stage of its development). There gradually come into being special social institutions as subjects of control, that is, a system of bodies and organizations exerting a conscious influence on the system with a view to achieving certain results.

However, not every conscious control is scientific. Scientific control is conscious control exercised in keeping with the demands of objective laws and of progressive tendencies. Scientific control has its basis in the theory of Marxism–Leninism.

The conscious factors of control have, in the course of society's progress, undergone profound changes from control based on the empirical traditions and customs of primitive society acquired directly from experience and passed on from one generation to another to scientific comprehension of social processes and their conscious scientifically founded control under socialism.

Conscious control, that is, the ordering of production and all social life by people themselves, is an indispensable attribute of every society and is, besides, a most important expression of man's activity, a necessary form of society's consolidation, preservation and improvement. As Marx wrote, "...regulation and order are themselves indispensable elements of any mode of production, if it is to assume social stability and emancipation from mere chance and arbitrariness."

As we can see, the purpose of conscious control is to resist the spontaneous, self-acting factors of control. It should be noted that this freedom from the influence of spontaneous factors is but a relative freedom, since society is unable to gain absolute freedom from the controlling force of chance at any point of its development.

It must be stressed that the degree of society's emancipation from the spontaneous effect of chance, its ability to counteract the spontaneous factors of control are dissimilar. They depend on how mature society is, what its objective laws and tendencies are, and how much opportunity these laws and tendencies afford for the intervention of man, and of social institutions, in social processes.

Conscious social control assumes, therefore, a concrete historical character. Its scope, content, purposes and principles depend on the essence of society, on the economic relations prevalent in it, and on the character of its socio-political system. In a class society conscious control acquires a class and political character. It is carried out in the interests of the economically dominant class. The ruling class (or group of classes) sets up a system of social institutions, bodies and organizations called upon to influence society in its interests.

Only in socialist society does it become possible and necessary for production and society as a whole to be managed in a scientific way. In this society, on the basis of socialist, public ownership, the law of planned, proportionate development of the national economy and all other spheres of social life operates. This makes it possible to co-ordinate the functioning of all the parts of the social organism, to direct their development towards the common goal of building communism, and to mobilize the necessary material, financial and manpower resources for the attainment of this goal and for the implementation of the tasks confronting society during each successive stage of its historical development.

The Soviet Union's experience in creating a fundamentally new type of management of society is often misrepresented in the West. Attempts are made to slur over the democratic character of socialist social control, and to counterpose centralism and democracy to each other. Now, what is the socialist type of control like? What are its specific features? How are centralism and democracy manifested in the practice of socialist management in the USSR?

Control has two functions—organizational-technical (related to any type of production or society) and socio-economic, which has to do with a concretely historical type of production—for instance, capitalist or socialist production. The organizational-technical function is more or less rigidly "tied down" to machines and fabrication techniques, which dictate a definite pattern of the distribution and interaction of the instruments of labour and the people operating them. The socio-economic function is determined by the character of the given social system, by the purposes served by production. The former function may have certain common features in countries with opposing social systems if their economic development levels are roughly equal. This enables the socialist countries to draw on useful international experience in the sphere of social control. Lenin noted that "The possibility of building socialism depends exactly upon our successes in combining the Soviet power and the Soviet organization of administration with the up-to-date achievements of capitalism."

As far as the socio-economic aspect of control is concerned, there can be no similarity between the two systems, for in this instance control unavoidably has a class character: under capitalism it serves exclusively the interests of the ruling class of proprietors, and there is nothing socialism could borrow from it. In all its forms, bourgeois democracy remains a democracy for the minority, strengthening and safeguarding private property, and political and social inequality.

History has put forward the socialist type of social control as the alternative to the capitalist. The characteristic features and advantages of the former are particularly manifest in the Soviet Union, which has the richest experience in the building of the new society.

Socialist society viewed as an object of control possesses a qualitatively higher level of integrity than capitalist society. This, in the first place, refers to economic integrity determined by the unchallenged domination of public owership of the implements and means of production, by collective ownership and disposal of the principal achieve- ments of technology, science and culture, and of all natural resources. It means, furthermore, social unity, for there are no antagonistic classes, no relations of exploitation and competition, but there is a harmony of the interests of the individual and society, the individual and the state. It means, finally, ideological and political unity, for under socialism there takes place the moulding of a harmoniously developed personality on the basis of a common scientific world outlook.

These innate properties of socialist society themselves demand an entirely new type of administration. For the first time in history, the possibility of and necessity for uniform centralized planning and direction of the whole of society as an integral social organism, as a complex of the economic, social and cultural spheres of social life have arisen. This is one of the main distinguishing features, and one of the main advantages, of the socialist type of control.

It is important to emphasize that centralization of control is an objective imperative of modern production, and of the scientific and technological revolution.

In so far as the interests of individual members of socialist society coincide, in the main, with social interests, the latter do not prevail over people as a blind alien force, but stand forth as a pre-programmed state.

Take this example. Every member of socialist society is interested in improving his standard of living and raising his qualifications and his cultural level. But that is also in the interests of the state, and of society; and in the national economic plans a growth of real incomes and a development of education at all levels are provided for. The plans lay down the time-limits and rates of attainment of definite targets in the economic, cultural and welfare spheres. This gives Soviet people confidence in the morrow— something which cannot be said of capitalist society. The socio-political and ideological unity of society enables its members to set a common aim and work together for its attainment. As a result, general objective laws manifest themselves through the conscious joint actions of all members of society, relations between whom are those of co-operation and mutual assistance. Hence a growth of the role of the subjective factor in regulating social processes under socialism, of the role of science, and of scientific cognition. Hence, consequently, one more essential feature of the socialist type of control: here we have, not separate elements of a conscious influence on the course of social processes, but control as an all-embracing process of a conscious, scientifically founded influence on society.

The whole of socialist production, and society as a whole, develop according to a single nation-wide state plan drafted by executives, scientists and specialists with the use of modern scientific methods and means. Herein lies one of the fundamental distinctions of socialist control from control in capitalist society, where integrated nation-wide planning is not possible because of the operation of the spontaneous forces of the market and competition.

One more distinguishing feature of socialist control is that there is no sharp distinction, let alone contradiction, between the administrators and the objects of administration. In Western society the managers (we mean top executives) are themselves property owners or the employees of big proprietors, and concern themselves primarily with multiplying the proprietors' profits. A Soviet manager will keep his post only if his chief concern is not his own well-being or that of a narrow group, but that of the work collective in his charge and of society as a whole.

The aim of socialist control is the prosperity of all the members of society and not the enrichment of some of them. It is to ensure an abundance of means making it possible for the creative forces and abilities of every Soviet man to flourish.

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Although science and technology, and especially cybernetics, have opened up stupendous prospects in improving control, their role should not be overestimated, let alone absolutized. It should not be forgotten that people, social collectives, are the main subject and object of control in society and that man plays the decisive role in consciously, purposefully influencing production and the social system as a whole.

Socialism creates the most favourable conditions for the integration of science, technology and control and provides ample scope for the scientific and technological revolution. One of the great advantages of socialism is that it makes it possible to promote planned development of science and technology, to co-ordinate the work of research and design institutions, to tie it in with the requirements of production, and to marshal the efforts of large masses of people for the accomplishment of major scientific, technical and production tasks.

Socialism uses the achievements of science, technology and the theory and practice of control for the benefit of the working man, in the interests of the all-round development of both society as a whole and of every individual. The horizons of science, technology and control in their unity and interaction are the horizons of socialism, and of communism.