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Rh the development of the co-operatives approach the state when they will compromise the whole population?"

In every Socialist revolution—after the proletariat has solved the problem of winning power, and to the extent to which the problem of expropriating the expropriators and of suppressing their resistance is solved—it becomes necessary to turn first of all to the fundamental problem of the creation of a higher social system than capitalism; namely, to raise the productivity of labor, and in connection with this (and for this), to improve its organization. Our Soviet power is just in such a position when, thanks to the victories over the exploiters, from Kerensky to Kornilov, it has become possible for it to approach this problem directly and to take hold of it. And here it becomes at once clear that though it is possible to seize the central state power in a few days, though it is possible to suppress the military resistance and the sabotage of the exploiters even in the distant corners of a large country in several weeks, a sound solution of the problem of increasing the productivity of labor requires at least (especially after a most distressing and destructive war) several years. The decisive character of this work is determined by purely objective circumstances.

To increase the productivity of labor we must first of all secure the material basis of a large industry: the development of the production of fuel, iron, machinery and of the chemical industry. The Russian Soviet Republic is in such an advantageous position that it possesses, even after the Brest-Litovsk peace, colossal stores of ore (on the Ural), of fuel in western Siberia (hard coal), in Caucasia and in the southeast (petroleum), in central Russia (turf), vast resources of lumber, water-power and raw material for the chemical industry (Karabugaz) and so on. The exploitation of these natural resources by the latest technical methods will furnish a basis for an unprecedented development of production. {{nop}