single person in Russia or in the world who can tell exactly what this
precious instrument actually means. What standard is to be established to
determine what labor is "productive" and "useful"? Is the journalist, for
instance, engaged in useful and productive labor? Is the novelist? is the
agitator? Presumably the journalist employed in defending the Soviet
Republic against attacks by unfriendly critics would be doing useful work
and be entitled to vote, but what about the journalist employed in making
the criticisms? Would the wife of the latter, no matter how much she might
disagree with her husband's views, be barred from voting, simply because
she was "engaged in housekeeping" for one whose labors were not regarded
"productive and useful to society"? If the language used means anything at
all, apparently she would be so disfranchised.

Upon what ground is it decided that the "private merchant" may not vote?
Certainly it is not because his labor is of necessity neither productive
nor useful, for paragraph 65 says that even though belonging to one of the
categories of persons otherwise qualified to vote, the private merchant may
"enjoy neither the right to vote nor to be voted for." The keeper of a
little grocery store, even though his income is not greater than that of a
mechanic, and despite the fact that his store meets a local need and makes
his services, therefore, "useful" in the highest degree, cannot enjoy civic
rights, simply because he is a "merchant"! The clergy of all denominations
are excluded from the franchise. It does not matter, according to this
constitution, that a minister belongs to a church independent of any
connection with the state, that he is elected by people who desire his
services and is paid by them, that he satisfies them and is therefore
doing a "useful service"--if utility means the satisfying of needs--because
he is so employed he cannot vote.

It is clearly provided that "peasants and Cossack agricultural laborers who
employ no help for the purpose of making profits" can vote and be voted
for. But no persons "who employ hired labor in order to obtain from it an
increase in profits" may vote or be elected to office, _even though the
work they do is productive and useful to society._ A peasant who hires no
assistance may vote, but if he decides that by employing a boy to help him
he will be able to give better attention to certain crops and make more
money, even though he pays the bo