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Having thus become the instrument for the rule of the great majority of society, the dictatorship of the proletariat, the socialist state, has the task of finally breaking the resistance of the former exploiting classes and defending itself against the external class enemy (in conditions of so-called capitalist encirclement), and also of ensuring the observance of certain essential norms in socioeconomic relations, particularly in connection with implementation of the principle of distribution according to work.

30 East European socialism The same applies to the problem of income distribution, where egalitarian tendencies continually clash, as they are bound to, with the maintenance of differential rewards in the name of productivity growth, where both the egalitarian requirements (equal pay? equal income per head? ) and those of differentiation (the limits and criteria of differentiation) demand continual reformulation and adaptation to concrete situations, taking account of indirect effects, etc. All this does not mean rejection of the category 'the social interest' or 'social preferences', nor abandoning comparison of practice with possibilities of realisation of the social interest.

In singling out democratism in the disposition over the means of production as the paramount criterion of socialisation we have underlined the connection between economic and political democratism whenever public ownership is the predominant form, but at the same time we have drawn attention to the different character of this connection in various models of socialism. This connection is strongest in the etatist model, since here society is deprived of the prerequisites for disposition over the means of production directly in the economic sphere and retains only the possibility of control or influence by means of political instruments.