ich springs up spontaneously, under stress of
immediate need, will be infinitely preferable to anything invented
between four walls by hide-bound theorists sitting on any number of
committees.

IV

The people of the great towns will be driven by force of circumstances
to take possession of all the provisions, beginning with the barest
necessaries, and gradually extending Communism to other things, in order
to satisfy the needs of all the citizens. The sooner it is done the
better; the sooner it is done the less misery there will be and the less
strife.

But upon what basis must society be organized in order that all may have
their due share of food produce? This is the question that meets us at
the outset.

We answer that there are no two ways of it. There is only one way in
which Communism can be established equitably, only one way which
satisfies our instincts of justice and is at the same time practical;
namely, the system already adopted by the agrarian communes of Europe.

Take for example a peasant commune, no matter where, even in France,
where the Jacobins have done their best to destroy all communal usage.
If the commune possesses woods and copses, then, so long as there is
plenty of wood for all, every one can take as much as he wants, without
other let or hindrance than the public opinion of his neighbours. As to
the timber-trees, which are always scarce, they have to be carefully
apportioned.

The same with the communal pasture land; while there is enough and to
spare, no limit is put to what the cattle of each homestead may consume,
nor to the number of beasts grazing upon the pastures. Grazing grounds
are not divided, nor is fodder doled out, unless there is scarcity. All
the Swiss communes, and scores of thousands in France and Germany,
wherever there is communal pasture land, practise this system.

And in the countries of Eastern Europe, where there are great forests
and no scarcity of land, you will find the peasants felling the trees as
they need them, and cultivating as much of the soil as they require,
without any thought of limiting each man's share of timber or of land.
But the timber will be allowanced, and the land parcelled out, to each
household according to its needs, as soon as either becomes scarce, as
is already the case in Russia.

In a word, the system is this: no stint or limit to what the community
possesses in abundance, but equal sharing and dividing of those
commodities