proletarian State is not work that effects the creation of new values. Indeed, many of the State instruments are maintained at the cost of the goods produced by the workers and peasants. To this category belong our military apparatus and the Red Army, the administrative system, all the means that are requisite for the struggle against the counter-revolution, and so on. But such features are not characteristic of the proletarian State; in these respects it is radically different from the exploiters’ State. The essential characteristic of the proletarian State is its gradual transformation from an unproductive organisation to become an organisation for the administration of economic life.
123. The proletarian State as a productive Apparatus.
Long before the end of the civil war, the proletarian State becomes mainly concerned with the production and distribution of goods. A mere enumeration of the central and local commissariats will make this perfectly plain. The most important of the soviet organisations is the Supreme Economic Council with its various subdepartments. This body is exclusively productive. The commissariats for agriculture, food, communications, and labour, are all likewise productive or distributive organisations, or organisations for the utilisation of labour power. In like manner the Commissariat for Popular Education, in proportion as its program for the institution of a unified labour school is realised, becomes an organisation for the preparation of skilled labour power. In the proletarian State, the Commissariat for Public Health is an instrument for the protection of the health of the workers; the Commissariat for Social Welfare is mainly concerned with the welfare of those who have been or will be workers (sanatoria, land settlements, etc.). Even the Commissariat for Administration finds its main activities engaged in supporting and leading the organs of local economic life, and in especial those of the municipalities. Taking it as a whole, the proletarian State mechanism becomes transformed into a huge