Social Diseases

Social Diseases. Under S. b. are meant diseases, the spread of which is determined by the socio-economic structure of society. To the group of S. b. are primarily attributed tuberculosis, venereal diseases, especially syphilis, alcoholism; narcotic addictions, rheumatism and often trachoma are also included, which is called a socio-domestic disease due to the predominant influence of severe domestic conditions on its spread. S. b. in the broad sense also include occupational diseases, since the conditions of capitalist production (the excessive exploitation of the proletariat-exhausting labor, long working day, extreme insufficiency of labor protection and safety techniques, etc.) lead to occupational diseases of workers. Bourgeois social hygienists deliberately narrow the concept of 'social diseases,' not connecting them with the existence of the capitalist system as a whole; they attribute to S. b. those diseases in which individual social factors play a role in their occurrence and spread: housing, nutrition or profession, etc., whose action, in their opinion, is added to the action of biological causes, which they consider primary. The class nature of S. b. is thus deliberately obscured and blurred by them. S. b. constitute the main part of social pathology of the working masses, generated by the conditions of the capitalist system. The founders of Marxism-Karl Marx and F. Engels-gave in their works a number of vivid descriptions of the nature of social pathology of the working class and the causes of its emergence and mass spread under capitalism; paying special attention to S. b., Karl Marx brilliantly proved in 'Capital' on the basis of enormous factual material that capitalist production 'to a much greater degree than any other mode of production is a squanderer of people's living labor, squandering not only the body and blood, but also nerves and brain' (Capital, vol. III, ch. V). Karl Marx, showing that 'the lives of tens of thousands of workers and working women at present are crippled and shortened without necessity by endless physical suffering, which is caused by the simple fact that they work,' establishes the inevitability that 'tuberculosis and other lung diseases are a condition for the existence of capital' (Capital, vol. I, ch. XIII). Capital, in the words of Marx, 'is ruthless toward the life and health of the worker' and to complaints about physical and spiritual mutilation, premature death, torment by excessive labor, it answers: 'how can these torments torment us if they increase our pleasure (profit)' (Capital, vol. I, ch. VIII). Here the social conditioning of workers' morbidity (including S. b.) by the class structure of capitalist society is clearly shown. And F. Engels, depicting in 'The Condition of the Working Class in England' the difficult position of workers and the associated enormous morbidity, says: 'What a splendid range of diseases has been created by this disgusting greed of the bourgeoisie. Women are deprived of the ability to bear children, children are crippled, the male organism is weakened, limbs are torn off, entire generations perish, infected with all sorts of diseases and impotence, and all this in order to fill the pockets of the bourgeoisie.' Describing here the horrifying conditions of capitalist exploitation of workers and their nightmarish domestic environment, F. Engels proves that capitalist production 'has placed workers in a position in which they cannot be healthy and cannot live long; that it thus gradually undermines the life of these workers, bringing them to premature death.' F. Engels, describing the hard life of workers, comes to the conclusion: 'How is it possible for the poor class to be healthy and long-lived under such conditions. What other result can there be than an excessive death rate, constant epidemics, the inevitable progressive physical weakening of the working class.' Engels agrees with the author of the article in the journal 'Artizan' whom he quotes, claiming that the described living conditions of workers 'must have as their inevitable consequence lung diseases, and they indeed occur most frequently among workers.' Engels further tells about the huge number of tuberculous workers whom he daily met in London in the morning, according to him, pale, lanky, narrow-chested ghosts with sunken eyes, with powerless, weak, devoid of any energy faces. And K. Marx, and F. Engels, and V. Lenin showed how capitalism promotes prostitution (Capital, vol. I, ch. XXV), alcoholism and other narcotic addictions, intoxicating workers in the metropolises and in every way encouraging the consumption of alcoholic beverages and opium in the colonies (K. Marx, Capital, vol. I, ch. XXIV). In the era of imperialism in all colonies of capitalist countries, tuberculosis, syphilis, alcoholism are unusually widespread in direct connection with the imperialist policy of oppression, enslavement and ruthless exploitation of colonial peoples. V. I. Lenin also clearly saw the roots of social diseases of the working class in the difficult living conditions of the exploited masses created by the capitalist system. Tuberculosis, drunkenness, prostitution and venereal diseases in Lenin's depiction are constant companions of the capitalist system. 'But cast a glance at all modern capitalist society,' writes Lenin in 'Draft of a speech on the agrarian question in the II State Duma' (Lenin, vol. II), 'at the large cities, at the railways, at the mines, quarries, factories and plants; you will see how tens and hundreds of thousands of workers are condemned to deprivation of fresh air, to work underground, to life in cellars, to the use of water spoiled by neighboring factories... what is there to say about the buying and selling of water, air and land, when the entire present society exists only by the buying and selling of labor power, i.e., by the wage slavery of millions of people.' Bourgeois medicine and bourgeois social hygiene never rose to an understanding of the class nature of social diseases of the working class. On the contrary, bourgeois medicine tries in every way to obscure the socio-class character of diseases of the working class, especially social diseases; at best, individual representatives of bourgeois medicine limited themselves only to establishing the connection between certain social diseases and the material well-being of the corresponding population groups, but avoiding making any conclusions about the need to eliminate the primary source of social diseases-the capitalist system that generates them. All measures to combat social diseases recommended by bourgeois medicine are miserable palliatives, which in no way can lead even to a more or less noticeable decrease in the spread of tuberculosis, syphilis, rheumatism, alcoholism, etc., since the main socio-economic roots of these diseases-capitalist production relations-continue to exist. The severe economic crisis, raging for several years (since 1930) in capitalist countries, has led to a strong growth of S. b., especially tuberculosis, among the working class, which is connected with extraordinary impoverishment, a sharp deterioration in their living standard (huge unemployment, significant reduction in wages, social insurance benefits, high cost of living, etc.)-see Tuberculosis, Syphilis, Alcoholism, Prostitution, Rheumatism. Taking into account the enormous importance of the struggle against S. b., the Communist International, putting forward in its program in the field of health protection a number of tasks of the proletarian dictatorship: for the protection of labor and living conditions, for the implementation of broad sanitary measures, for the organization of free medical care, especially notes the task of combating S. b. (alcoholism, venereal diseases, tuberculosis). In pre-revolutionary Russia, social diseases were very widespread. The pre-revolutionary bourgeois-landowner system created favorable conditions for their wide development among the working class. Social diseases were extremely rampant among national minorities in the outskirts, subjected to unbearable exploitation and for the most part deprived of any cultural and medical-sanitary institutions. Kalmyks, Kirghiz, Turkmen, Caucasian mountain peoples, Buryats and a number of northern nationalities were degenerating. Social diseases constantly reaped a rich harvest among them. The October Revolution, having eliminated the capitalist system in Russia, establishing the dictatorship of the proletariat and launching the successful construction of a socialist society, destroyed the basic prerequisites for the existence of S. b. It eliminated the conditions that generated S. b. The new system of the dictatorship of the proletariat excluded any possibility of their spread. But the 'past' for a number of years still makes itself felt in the large number of victims of S. b.-the not yet eradicated heritage of the pre-revolutionary time. The enormous work on improving the material and living conditions of the broad working masses, carried out by the party and government on the basis of a fundamental restructuring of the national economy-industrialization of the country and collectivization of agriculture, raising the cultural level of the population and the broad development of medical-sanitary assistance to the working class, especially in the outskirts-has led to a sharp decrease in social diseases.

The task set forth in the program of the VKP(b) in the field of public health—'the struggle with social diseases (tuberculosis, venereal diseases, alcoholism, etc.)'—point 25 of the VKP(b) program—the party has consistently carried out and achieved enormous successes (see the respective diseases). In contrast to capitalist countries, where the bourgeois state mostly hypocritically leaves the fight against S. b.—tuberculosis, alcoholism, and venereal diseases—to private philanthropic societies and organizations, and in reality is not interested in this struggle, since the victims of these diseases are mostly proletarians, in the USSR the matter of eliminating S. b. became a matter of state importance, for which the Soviet government took up immediately after the October Revolution (see Public Health, Tuberculosis, Syphilis, etc.). Under the conditions of the Soviet socialist system, where the exploitation of man by man has been eliminated and all prerequisites have been created for building socialism, which ensures the harmonious development of a healthy, integral personality as part of the socialist collective in creative, joyful work, all those social factors that lead to the appearance of S. b. are absent. On the contrary, socialist construction radically destroys social diseases. As early as the XVI Congress of the VKP(b), Comrade Stalin, noting on the basis of the growth of industry and agriculture the significant improvement in the material position of the working people, came to the conclusion that all this 'creates such a working and living environment for the working class that gives us the opportunity to raise a new generation of workers, healthy and cheerful, capable of raising the power of the Soviet state to the proper height and defending it with their chests against encroachments from enemies.' The work of implementing the first five-year plan was marked by enormous achievements in the field of public health, in the reduction of S. b. (see individual social diseases). As the material and living conditions of workers and collective farmers continue to improve, the health of the working people becomes stronger and stronger, and the spread of S. b. decreases more and more. 'As a result of the implementation of Bolshevik tempos of social construction and the elimination in principle of parasitic classes, in the first five-year period the foundations and source of the exploitation of man by man are eliminated, the national income grows at a pace unattainable for capitalist countries, unemployment and poverty (pauperism) are eliminated, the 'price scissors' and the opposition between city and countryside are eliminated, the well-being and cultural level of workers and working peasants grow year by year, mortality falls and the population of the USSR rapidly increases' (from the resolution of the 17th All-Union Party Conference). Naturally, with the successful further development of socialist construction, 'social diseases' will recede into the PAST.