V. I. Lenin

From the Destruction of the Old Social System

To the Creation of the New

Our newspaper [1] is devoted to the problem of communist labour.

This is the paramount problem in the building of socialism. First of all, we must make it quite clear to ourselves
that this question could be raised in a practical way only after
the proletariat had captured political power, only after the
landowners and capitalists had been expropriated, only after the
proletariat, having captured state power, had achieved decisive
victories over the exploiters who put up a desperate resistance
and organised counter-revolutionary rebellions and civil war.

It seemed that the time had arrived early in 1918—and it
had indeed arrived after the February (1918) military campaign of
German imperialism against Russia. But on that occasion the period
was so short-lived, a new and more powerful wave of counter-revolutionary rebellions and invasions swept over us so
quickly, that the Soviet government had no opportunity, to devote
itself at all closely and persistently to problems of peaceful
development.

We have now passed through two years of unprecedented and
incredible difficulties, two years of famine, privation, and
distress, accompanied by the unprecedented victories of the Red
Army over the hordes of international capitalist reaction.

Today there are serious grounds for hoping (if the French
capitalists do not incite Poland to make war on us) that we shall
get a more durable and lasting peace.

During these two years we have acquired some experience in
organisation on the basis of socialism. That is why we can, and
should, get right down to the problem of communist labour, or
rather, it would be more correct to say, not communist, but
socialist labour; for we are dealing not with the higher, but
the lower, the primary stage of development of the new social
system that is growing out of capitalism.

Communist labour in the narrower and stricter sense of the term
is labour performed gratis for the benefit of society, labour
performed not as a definite duty, not for the purpose of obtaining
a right to certain products, not according to previously
established and legally fixed quotas, but voluntary labour,
irrespective of quotas; it is labour performed without expectation
of reward, without reward as a condition, labour performed because
it has become a habit to work for the common good, and because of
a conscious realisation (that has become a habit) of the necessity
of working for the common good—labour as the requirement of
a healthy organism.

It must be clear to everybody that we, i.e., our society, our
social system, are still a very long way from the application of
this form of labour on a broad, really mass scale.

But the very fact that this question has been raised, and
raised both by the whole of the advanced proletariat (the
Communist Party and the trade unions) and by the state authorities, is a step in this direction.

To achieve big things we must start with little things.

On the other hand, after the "big things", after the revolution
which overthrew capitalist ownership and placed the proletariat in
power, the organisation of economic life on the new basis
can only start from little things.

Subbotniks, labour armies, labour conscription—these are
the practical realisation of socialist and communist labour in
various forms.

This practical realisation still suffers from numerous defects. Only people who are totally incapable of thinking, if we
leave aside the champions of capitalism, can laugh scornfully (or
rage) at them.

Defects, mistakes, blunders in such a new, difficult and great
undertaking are inevitable. Those who are afraid of the
difficulties of building socialism, those who allow themselves to
be scared by them, those who give way to despair or cowardly
dismay, are no socialists.

It will take many years, decades, to create a new labour
discipline, new forms of social ties between people, and new forms
and methods of drawing people into labour.

It is a most gratifying and noble work.

It is our good fortune that, by overthrowing the bourgeoisie
and suppressing its resistance, we have been able to win the
ground on which this work has become possible.

And we will set about this work with all our might. Perseverance, persistence, willingness, determination and
ability to test things a hundred times, to correct them a hundred
times, but to achieve the goal come what may—these are qualities which the proletariat acquired in the course of the ten,
fifteen or twenty years that preceded the October Revolution, and
which it has acquired in the two years that have passed since this
revolution, years of unprecedented privation, hunger, ruin and
destitution. These qualities of the proletariat are a guarantee
that the proletariat will conquer.

April 8, 1920

Endnotes

[1]
This refers to the newspaper Kommunistichesky Subbotnik
issued on one occasion only on the initiative of the Moscow
Committee of the R.C.P.(B.). It was prepared by the editors of and
contributors to the Moscow newspapers Pravda , Izvestia , Bednota , Ekonomicheskaya Zhizn , Kommunistichesky Trud and the ROSTA telegraph
agency during the subbotnik of April 10, 1920. The initiative was
supported by printers who participated with great enthusiasm in
the first "newspaper" subbotnik. The newspaper was set and printed
in the printing-shop of the All-Russia C.E.C. and circulated on
April 11. Among its contributors were Lenin, Yaroslavsky,
Kollontai, Demyan Bedny, Serafimovich and Timiryazev.