employment of more labor-power, labor-power had become a
value. But the limitations of the communal system did not afford any
attainable surplus labor power. Yet war did give such an opportunity
for getting surplus labor power and war was as old as the simultaneous
existence of groups of communal groups in close juxtaposition. Up to
this time men did not take prisoners of war, they killed them right
off, and, at a still earlier date, they ate them. But at the stage of
economic development of which we speak they had a value and they were
not only allowed to live but were set to work. So force instead of
being the master of economic conditions was pressed into the service
of those conditions. Slavery was discovered. It soon became the
dominant form of production among all people who had developed beyond
the tribal communal stage and as a matter of fact was at the end one
of the main reasons for the break up of the communal system. Slavery
first made the division of labor between agriculture and industry
completely possible and brought into existence the flower of the old
world, Greece. Without slavery there would have been no Grecian state,
no Grecian art and science and no Roman Empire. There would have been
no modern Europe without the foundation of Greece and Rome. We must
not forget that our entire economic, political and intellectual
development has its foundation in a state of society in which slavery
was regarded universally as necessary. In this sense we may say that
without the ancient slavery there would have been no modern socialism.

It is very easy to make preachments about slavery and to express our
moral indignation at such a scandalous institution. Unfortunately the
whole significance of this is that it merely says that these old
institutions do not correspond with our present conditions and the
sentiments engendered by these conditions. We do not however in this
way explain how these institutions came into existence, why they came
into existence and the role which they have played in history. And
when we enter upon this matter we are obliged to say in spite of all
contradiction and accusations of heresy that the introduction of
slavery under the conditions of that time was a great step forwards.
It is a fact that man sprang from the lower animals and has had to
employ barbaric and really bestial methods in order to rid himself of
barbarism. The old communal system where it persisted built up the
most elem