THE most general definition of politics is that politics is the form of interrelations among classes, social groups and nations, a form directly or indirectly connected with the manifestation and implementation of power.

What are the ultimate objectives of the political party at a given historical stage in a given country? What are the conditions for achieving these aims and how does the party associate the struggle for achieving them with the international objectives of the working class?
With the Marxist-Leninist theory as its guide, and proceeding from its programme the party works out its policies and tactics. The party’s policies concern all questions bearing on the interests of all the working masses. The party’s tactics are the ways it implements its political line.
The political party has its rules on the basis of which it is built as a single firm organisation. The party ideologically, the rules do so organisationally. They determine the forms of the party’s organisation, the methods of its work, the standards of its internal life and the principles of its leadership. They indicate who may and must be admitted to the party, the rights and duties of the party structure from top to bottom and the interrelations between its higher and lower bodies.
The political system permits, in my view, inclusion in one system of all the basic categories and concepts describing the political life of society. Beginning from this category, investigators are able to move by degrees toward increasingly focused and differentiated political categories, devising a set of characteristics subject to verification by clear and logical determination.
A political system is one of the structures of society, alongside the economic and intellectual systems, set apart by the activity by social groups. The political system is distinguished from other social systems, first, by its supremacy. It exercises supreme power in society, its decisions are obligatory for all society and for each of its systems. The basic function of the political system is to mobilise resources for the attainment of goals that are set for society by its leading socio-class forces. Its principal characteristic is power. Compare this with the economic system, which is concerned above all with the production of goods and services and is directed to the satisfaction of society’s demands, or with the intellectual system, the prime function of which is the adaptation of individuals through the establishment of behavioural norms and models.
Second, the political system interacts with other socio-economic structures of society. Wielding supreme power in society, the political system is nevertheless the superstructure, predetermined by society’s economic and social bases.
The third specific characteristic of the political system is its relative autonomy, determined by the special mechanism of group structures, roles and functions. The political system is the most formal of society’s representative institutions. Relations within it are as a rule governed by special norms, both legal and political.
Fourth, the influence of the political system on all of society is more active than the influence of any other of society’s structures, which follows from the fact that it has supreme power and the opportunity to dispose of society’s resources.
These properties are true of the political system of any society. They have social substance in every socio-economic formation at every stage of its development.
We should distinguish the basic functions of the political system from its special hallmarks. These functions are: 1) the determination of society’s goals and tasks; 2) the mobilisation of resources; 3) the integration of all elements of society; 4) legitimisation, by which is meant the correspondence of political life as practised to official political and legal norms.
The establishment of goals and the mobilisation of resources to meet them are the principal functions of the political system, while integration and legitimisation are functions both of the political and of other social systems. On the basis of these characteristics, we can analyse not only the institutional, but also the behavioural aspects of political life.
The constituent elements of political life should be distinguished from its distinguishing marks and parameters. I suggest four groups of elements of the political system of socialist society, corresponding to their roles and functions: 1) political organisations; 2) political norms; 3) political relations; 4) political consciousness.
One can consider those institutions of social life, groups, norms, functions and roles that interact closely with political administration as elements of the political system. From the point of view of the roles and functions carried out by specific elements of the political system, one can distinguish between non-functional elements, those that have an exclusively political function, such as political parties and functional elements, for which the political function is only one of many. We must note the presence of episodic political functions or interactions in those institutions, organisations and groups for which politics is not an important function, such as scientific societies, etc.
There are political aspects in the behaviour of almost all contemporary institutions, communities and individuals. However, only those institutions that interact strongly with power and administration and for which such activity is an essential characteristic are elements of the political system.
In the works of Marx and Engels, we meet, too, the concept “political structure,” which is used principally as a synonym for “state” in the broad sense of the word.
Thus, the concept of the “political system” is broader than the concept of “state” in the accepted, narrow sense of the word. But it is also broader than the concept of the “political organisation of society,” though the latter is the most essential element of the political system. It is through political organisations that the principal goals of society are set, that political policy is determined, that political and legal norms are formulated, that society as a whole is mobilized. But the political system, as already mentioned, cannot be reduced to society’s political organisations. Real political life and political relations are much broader than the activity of political organisations. They include, in addition to political and legal norms, the political relations of various social communities, e.g. , the working collective, that describe the process by which the political system functions.
We should now look in more detail at the elements of the political system of developed socialist society in their interaction, i.e., in the operation and development of that system.

SHERWOOD CLARKE
General President
Clerical & Commercial Workers’ Union