Comrades, the internal civil war is coming to an end. On the western
front, the situation remains undecided. It is possible that the Polish
bourgeoisie will hurl a challenge at its fate.... But even in this
case--we do not seek it--the war will not demand of us that
all-devouring concentration of forces which the simultaneous struggle
on four fronts imposed upon us. The frightful pressure of the war is
becoming weaker. Economic requirements and problems are more and more
coming to the fore. History is bringing us, along the whole line, to
our fundamental problem--the organization of labor on new social
foundations. The organization of labor is in its essence the
organization of the new society: every historical form of society is
in its foundation a form of organization of labor. While every
previous form of society was an organization of labor in the interests
of a minority, which organized its State apparatus for the oppression
of the overwhelming majority of the workers, we are making the first
attempt in world history to organize labor in the interests of the
laboring majority itself. This, however, does not exclude the element
of compulsion in all its forms, both the most gentle and the extremely
severe. The element of State compulsion not only does not disappear
from the historical arena, but on the contrary will still play, for a
considerable period, an extremely prominent part.
As a general rule, man strives to avoid labor. Love for work is not at
all an inborn characteristic: it is created by economic pressure and
social education. One may even say that man is a fairly lazy animal.
It is on this quality, in reality, that is founded to a considerable
extent all human progress; because if man did not strive to expend his
energy economically, did not seek to receive the largest possible
quantity of products in return for a small quantity of energy, there
would have been no technical development or social culture. It would
appear, then, from this point of view that human laziness is a
progressive force, Old Antonio Labriola, the Italian Marxist, even
used to picture the man of the future as a "happy and lazy genius." We
must not, however, draw the conclusion from this that the party and
the trade unions must propagate this quality in their agitation as a
moral duty. No, no! We have sufficient of it as it is. The problem
before the social organization is just to bring "laziness" within a
definite framework, to discipline it, and to pull mankind together
with the help of methods and measures invented by mankind itself.