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p The necessity for work may be described as man’s labour activity that has become a habit.

p The possibility of turning labour into a vital necessity lies in labour itself. Indeed, labour has always been the basic natural condition for man’s existence, a major outlet for his vital activity. Man’s capabilities and his human qualities are shaped in labour. Inasmuch as any work is a play of physical and mental powers, it also contains elements of creative effort. Moreover, it is the most important source for satisfying man’s varied requirements. Physiological prerequisites are also involved, because man constantly feels the need to expend the energy which he has naturally accumulated, and labour is the key outlet for this energy.

p At the same time, in order to make this possibility a reality, the nature of labour must be changed by putting an end to survivals of the old division of labour and turning it into a source of joy and delight. All the dark aspects of labour, aspects which clash with the nature of man, must be eliminated, and the bright, attractive aspects developed to the utmost.

p Heavy physical labour and filthy and monotonous work must be abolished, and conditions must be created to enable people engaged in this labour to change their professions.

p These problems are resolved by building the material and technical basis of communism, mainly through the electrification, comprehensive mechanisation and the ever fuller automation of production processes.

p Rapid technical progress linked up with the building of the material and technical basis of communism demands greater efficiency in industry and higher standards of special training and general education. The development and improvement of techniques are accompanied by a growth of the level of the people’s culture and technical knowledge, with the result that the distinction between mental and physical work is erased. This accentuates the intellectual, spiritual side of labour and gradually moves its creative aspect to the forefront. Eloquent testimony of this is the huge number of inventors and production rationalisers in the Soviet Union. In 1965 alone more than 242 four million inventions and technical improvements were suggested and of these over 2,800,000 were introduced in the economy.

p Technical progress eradicates the one-sided nature of physical or intellectual work and gives rise to a qualitatively new kind of labour, in which physical and mental efforts are integrated. The basic forms of labour are turned into creative activity.

p Another outcome of technical progress is that the intellectual side of labour becomes more pronounced thus making labour more attractive. Working conditions steadily improve and harmonious labour relations become more firmly rooted. The absence of noise, the abundance of light and verdure, the attractive colour of implements of labour and of work premises and ideal cleanliness and order will turn factories into “bright laboratories worthy of human beings”.  [242•* 

p Thus, powerful machines incorporating the latest achievements of science and man’s wide knowledge will fundamentally change the nature and conditions of work under communism.

p One may ask whether the automated industries of communism will not leave people with nothing to do except press the push-buttons on the control panels? There are no grounds whatever for apprehensions of this kind. Automated machines will abolish heavy back-breaking labour but they will never release man from the necessity for applying a certain amount of physical and mental effort to work and will never turn labour into an amusement, into a senseless pressing of push-buttons.

In a reply to Charles Fourier, who believed that under communism labour would be an amusement, Marx wrote: “Genuinely free labour, for instance the labour of a composer, is devilishly serious and requires tremendous strain.” Under communism labour is a joy and delight because its creative aspect eclipses the strain and the fatigue. However, this does not imply that labour will not require people to surmount obstacles and difficulties. For example, will not space exploration, that has already been started, require an immense intellectual and 243 physical effort? Wherever there is work to be done there always will be difficulties which will require man’s mental and physical strength.