Page:Nikolai Bukharin - Programme of the World Revolution (1920).djvu/59

 of introducing labour record books and labour service. Every one of the above-named class should receive a special book in which an account is kept of his work, that is to say, of his compulsory service. Fixed entries in his book entitle him to buy or receive certain food products, bread in the first place. Anyone who refuses to work, supposing he sabotages (an ex-official, a former manufacturer or landowner who cannot possibly accustom himself to the idea of the loss of land on which he has lived for years and has become a frenzied enemy of the workers), if such an individual refuses to work there is no corresponding entry in his book. He goes to the-store, but is told, "There is nothing for you. Please to show an entry confirming your work."

Under such a system the mass of idlers who fill the Nevsky Prospect in Petrograd and the main streets of other big towns, will have to set to work against their will. It is perfectly understood that the carrying into execution of this kind of labour service will be hindered by many obstacles. The upper and upper-middle classes will, on the other hand, make every endeavour to evade this compulsory service, and on the other hand, try by every means within their power to hinder such an order. To arrange matters so that certain food products should be obtained only on producing a corresponding entry in the labour book, and that such products should not be distributed in any other way, is not an easy matter. The rich who possess money (and money means merely counters for obtaining products) have also a thousand possibilities of deceiving the Soviet Government and duping the workers and poorest peasantry. These possibilities must be destroyed by a well-regulated organisation for supplying products.

Of course labour service for the rich should only be a transitory stage towards general labour service. The latter is necessary not only because the productiveness of our trade and agriculture can be increased by enlisting the service of all members of society fit for work, but also because a strict account of labour power and a proper distribution of such over the various branches of production and the different undertakings is necessary. Just as in war time it is necessary, on the one hand, to mobilise all the forces, and on the other to keep account of and properly organise them, so in the war with economic disorganisation it is necessary to draw all the useful sections of the population into the work, register and organise