NOTE 53 breed illusions and to mislead people. However, their long-term aims are doomed to bankruptcy, for they can never achieve their strategic goal of perpetuating their outdated social system and preventing its replacement by socialism and communism. The human mind has a way of discarding the exterior of things and getting at their true character. With time illusions being spread and pressed upon people evaporate'in smoke. The prominent US sociologist R Merton, admits, "We should not exaggerate the role of propaganda. In the long run no propaganda can prevail if it runs counter to events and forces underlying these events . . /5 Despite its refined methods, bourgeois propaganda has been losing out, for it has tried to go against the objective course of social development and it is in contradiction with the fundamental goals of the working class and all working people—the forces that are behind the social progress and determine it. This failure is revealed in the collapse of various bourgeois myths such as the "welfare society55, "peopled capitalism55, and the "great society'5. Manipulation can never produce any solid or lasting results since tlie myths and illusions it seeks to spread are in basic contradiction with realities. Life demonstrates that in every sphere—socio-economic, political and spiritual—present day capitalism continues to suppress and oppress the working people. Although self-preservation is the main objective of modern capitalism, it cannot alter its predatory exploiting nature. While seeking reconciliation5 with the working class, the monopoly bourgeoisie is at the same time driven to seek new ways and means of intensifying its exploitation. That is why, by virtue of their social status_, the working people are inevitably impelled to struggle against the exploiting class, against the bourgeoisie and its ideology. Propaganda boomerangs when the recipient, from personal experience, finds the examples cited unmeaningful, that is, specially selected and failing to reflect the actual state of affairs. Bourgeois sociologists centre attention upon the aspect of the '•boomerang effect^ which is due to technical shortcomings and errors, getting around the fundamental issue of the ideological basis of propaganda and its socio-political tendencies. Meanwhile, the trend of propaganda is resulting in a more profound "boomerang effect'5 than any of its ''technical95 blunders. The ^boomeiang55 effect may be an expression not only of technical shortcomings but of a propaganda crisis in general. This crisis roots in the discrepancy between the initial ideological precepts with regard to propaganda and principal tendencies of the progress of history. Ideological precepts determine the propagandist's approach to historical facts and developments, and the way in which they are interpreted and judged. Moreover, ideological precepts do not change as the socio-political situation changes. They may be modified under its impact, remaining essentially the same. Such a constant ideological