The educational system occupies a special place in the structure of socialist society and fills a multifunctional social role. "Education is a vital part of our country's life," Comrade L. I. Brezhnev has emphasized. "It is specifically the school that lays the foundations of a person's knowledge and world view, that shapes his character. All the qualities that determine the personal makeup of the Soviet man — communist consciousness, love of work, patriotism, humaneness, and a feeling of internationalism — are instilled under the influence of, and with active participation by the school" (The Leninist Course [Leninskim kursom], vol. 2, p. 220). Unlike previous social orders, socialist society prepares for its future deliberately, purposefully, and in a planned way, not only with regard to the development and improvement of the material and technological foundation of society, but also with regard to improvement in social relations and the development of the new man. V. I. Lenin always considered the school and the cause of public education as a most important factor in developing and strengthening the entire social system and in expanding and consolidating new socialist social relations among people. In a talk with A. V. Lunacharsky, he once said, "Don't worry, Anatolii Vasil'evich, some day we will have only two large people's commissariats: the People's Commissariat of Economics and the People' Commissariat of Education, and there will not be even the slightest friction between them" (A. V. Lunacharsky, On Public Education [O narodnom obrazovanii], Moscow, 1958, p. 368). The decree of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, "On Further Improving the Teaching and Social Education of General Education School Pupils and Their Preparation for Labor," notes that during the years of Soviet power, "the general education school has made an inestimable contribution to inculcating all generations of Soviet people with communist convictions, lofty feelings of Soviet patriotism and proletarian internationalism, and a readiness to work and defend the accomplishments of their socialist homeland. The school maintains continuous ties with life, with the great accomplishments of Soviet society, and with the selfless labor of the people to fulfill the historic decisions of the Twenty-fifth Congress of the CPSU. The general education school is truly a school for all the people, a school that consistently implements the Leninist principles of a unified, labor, polytechnical school" (Pravda, December 29, 1977).