consequently we do not repudiate the army. Secondly, we do not repudiate in principle general labor service. But, after all, where is there anyone in the world, with the exception of small religious sects, who denies self-defence “in principle”! Nevertheless, the matter does not move one step forward as a result of your abstract admission. When it came to a real struggle, and to the creation of a real army against the real enemies of the working class, what did you do then? You opposed, you sabotaged – while not repudiating self-defence in principle. You said and wrote in your papers: “Down with the civil war!” at the time when we were surrounded by White Guards, and the knife was at our throat. Now you, approving our victorious self-defence after the event, transfer your critical gaze to new problems, and attempt to teach us. “In general, we do not repudiate the principle of general labor service,” you say, “but ... without legal compulsion.” Yet in these very words there is a monstrous internal contradiction! The idea of “obligatory service” itself includes the element of compulsion. A man is obliged, he is bound to do something. If he does not do it, obviously he will suffer compulsion, a penalty. Here we approach the question of what penalty. Abramovich says: “Economic pressure, yes; but not legal compulsion.” Comrade Holtzman, the representative of the Metal Workers’ Union, excellently demonstrated all the scholasticism of this idea. Even under capitalism, that is to say under the regime of “free” labor, economic pressure is inseparable from legal compulsion. Still more so now.
In my report I attempted to explain that the adaptation of the workers on new social foundations to new forms of labor, and the attainment of a higher level of productivity of labor, are possible only by means of the simultaneous application of various methods – economic interest, legal compulsion, the influence of an internally co-ordinated economic organization, the power of repression, and, first and last, moral influence, agitation, propaganda, and the general raising of the cultural level,
Only by the combination of all these methods can we attain a high level of Socialist economy.