kept that. There was a conflict; it was in
bourgeoise hands but it was an essential part of the
projected system of distribution, so Lenin compromised and
communist Russia has it. He had the railroads, telegraph,
telephone already; the workers seized the factories, the
local Soviets the mines; the All-Russian Soviet, the banks.
The new government set up shops--one in each
neighborhood--to dole out not for money, but on work
tickets, whatever food, fuel, and clothing this complete
government monopoly had to distribute. No bargaining, no
display, no advertising, and no speculation. Everything one
has earned by labor the right to buy at the cooperative and
soviet shops is at a fixed, low price, at the established
(too small.) profit--to the government or to the members of
the cooperative.

Money is to be abolished gradually. It does not count much
now. Private capital has been confiscated, most of the rich
have left Russia, but there are still many people there who
have hidden away money or valuables, and live on them
without working. They can buy food and even luxuries, but
only illegally from peasants and speculators at the risk of
punishment and very high prices. They can buy, also, at the
government stores, at the low prices, but they can get only
their share there, and only on their class or work tickets.
The class arrangement, though transitory and temporary--the
aim is to have but one class--is the key to the idea of the
whole new system.

There are three classes. The first can buy, for example,
1-1/2 pounds of bread a day; the second, three-quarters of a
pound; the third, only one-quarter of a pound; no matter how
much money they may have. The first class includes soldiers,
workers in war, and other essential industries, actors,
teachers, writers, experts, and Government workers of all
sorts. The second class is of all other sorts of workers.
The third is of people who do not work--the leisure class.
Their allowance is, under present circumstances, not enough
to live on, but they are allowed to buy surreptitiously from
speculators on the theory that the principal of their
capital will soon be exhausted, and, since interest, rent,
and profits--all forms of unearned money--are abolished,
they will soon be forced to