and axes, but may lack food for the men, so that our wood-cutting schemes come to nothing. It is obvious, however, that the only way out of our many difficulties is through the right utilisation of the labour power at our disposal.
Associated with this problem is that of carrying out general mobilisations for the performance of one kind of social work or another. When work of fortification was urgently required, an excellent use was made of the labour power of the masses which would otherwise have run to waste. This task must be systematically performed. The universal obligation to labour is part of the constitution of the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic, but in practice we are a long way from its realisation. Our first duty, then, is to see to it that all the labour power of the Workers’ Republic shall be adequately utilised. Our second duty concerns the distribution and redistribution of labour power. It is sufficiently obvious that the productivity of labour will depend upon how far we can effect a purposive distribution of labour power throughout the various districts and throughout the various branches of work.