Collected Works of V. I. Lenin - Vol. 26 - From Marx to Mao

414V. I. LENINdistribution of products. The programme of this accountingand control is simple, clear and intelligible to all—everyoneto have bread; everyone to have sound footwear and goodclothing; everyone to have warm dwellings; everyone towork conscientiously; not a single rogue (including thosewho shirk their work) to be allowed to be at liberty, but keptin prison, or serve his sentence of compulsory labour of thehardest kind; not a single rich man who violates the lawsand regulations of socialism to be allowed to escape the fateof the rogue, which should, in justice, be the fate of the richman. “He who does not work, neither shall he eat”—this isthe practical commandment of socialism. This is how thingsshould be organised practically. These are the practicalsuccesses our “communes” and our worker and peasantorganisers should be proud of. And this applies particularlyto the organisers among the intellectuals (particularly,because they are too much, far too much in the habit of beingproud of their general instructions and resolutions).Thousands of practical forms and methods of accounting andcontrolling the rich, the rogues and the idlers must be devisedand put to a practical test by the communes themselves, bysmall units in town and country. Variety is a guarantee ofeffectiveness here, a pledge of success in achieving the singlecommon aim—to clean the land of Russia of all vermin, offleas—the rogues, of bugs—the rich, and so on and so forth.In one place half a score of rich, a dozen rogues, half a dozenworkers who shirk their work (in the manner of rowdies,the manner in which many compositors in Petrograd, particularlyin the Party printing-shops, shirk their work) will beput in prison. In another place they will be put to cleaninglatrines. In a third place they will be provided with “yellowtickets” after they have served their time, so that everyoneshall keep an eye on them, as harmful persons, until theyreform. In a fourth place, one out of every ten idlers will beshot on the spot. In a fifth place mixed methods may beadopted, and by probational release, for example, the rich,the bourgeois intellectuals, the rogues and rowdies who arecorrigible will be given an opportunity to reform quickly.The more variety there will be, the better and richer willbe our general experience, the more certain and rapid willbe the success of socialism, and the easier will it be for