The social/economic contradictions are different from all others in nature that they apply to humans, and so they describe qualities specific to social /interest groups/social classes, and the resolution would be inside human social structures. For any unknown social/economic contradiction the spontaneous antagonistic resolution would be with loss of value and resources.
If the contradictions are known, the resolution may be accomplished before the reaching the antagonistic stages. So it can be stated that the efficient leaders of society should know and resolve the contradictions as they get available solutions, avoiding antagonistic stages or social conflicts.
The study of contradictions in Socialism or in any society has importance beyond the theoretical aspect. The very practical/pragmatic aspect would be the optimization of social relations between classes/group of interest and the correct allocation of resources into society as a whole.
The media manipulation is what the governments do at time to postpone the antagonistic stage until the underlining facts help for a peaceful resolution.
The antagonist stage of contradictions
“In each thing there is contradiction between its new and its old aspects, and this gives rise to a series of struggles with many twists and turns. As a result of these struggles, the new aspect changes from being minor to being major and rises to predominance, while the old aspect changes from being major to being minor and gradually dies out. And the moment the new aspect gains dominance over the old, the old thing changes qualitatively into a new thing. It can thus be seen that the nature of a thing is mainly determined by the principal aspect of the contradiction, the aspect which has gained predominance. When the principal aspect which has gained predominance changes, the nature of a thing changes accordingly.”(Mao)
In December 1989 the contradiction between Ceausescu’ rhetoric and Romanian population starvation become antagonistic and it was solved by popular uprising.