In the Soviet Republic the workers and the poor peasants are not the objects of exploitation. But it does not follow from this that there is not widespread poverty in the country. In Russia, perpetually harassed by its enemies, blockaded on all sides, cut off from its supplies of coal, petroleum, and raw materials, there is a terrible amount of poverty. It is no longer because the capitalist throws the workers out of the factories, but because the factories have to be closed for lack of fuel and raw material. Hence there is unemployment. It is not the unemployment of the old kind; it arises from very different causes, but it exists. As a legacy from the imperialist war we have invalids and cripples; we have the numerous victims of the counter-revolution; we have the aged, the sick, and the children — for all these helpless persons care is needed, and they are all a source of expense. The workers’ government does not look upon the help which it gives them as a gift, an alms, or a benefaction. The workers’ State makes their support its primary duty, above all in the case of those who are invalided from the army of labour or from the Red Army.
Our ultimate aim is to bring about the existence of a state of society in which all persons who for one reason or another have lost the capacity for work, all those who are unable to work, shall have assured support. We must ensure that old people shall enjoy a peaceful old age in which they will be provided with all the comforts of life; that children shall have everything suitable to their requirements; that invalids and cripples shall be able to live in the circumstances most appropriate to their condition; that those who are wearied and overworked shall be placed in curative surroundings, where they will receive all the care that used to be given to the wealthy bourgeois who were ailing; that no one shall any longer be perpetually harassed with anticipations of hard times.