p Having put an end to private ownership and exploitation, socialism thereby abolished the foundations of the capitalist division of labour and set about eradicating the distinction between town and country and between mental and physical labour. The new division of labour takes the form of co-operation and mutual assistance among people who are free of exploitation. This division of labour is planned and organised. At the same time, survivals of the old division of labour persist in socialist society, namely, the essential distinction between industrial and farm labour and between mental and physical work. These distinctions are gradually expunged in the course of communist construction.

p There will be a certain division of labour under communism as well. Generally speaking, a division of labour will be necessary as long as material production exists. Marx wrote: “That this necessity of distributing social labour in definite proportion cannot be done away with by the particular form of social production, but can only change the form it assumes, is self-evident.”

p The division of labour between workers and collective farmers will disappear because farming will become a form of industrial labour, and there will be no distinction between mental and physical work. However, the division of labour between different branches of industry and between different industrial enterprises will remain, as will the territorial division of labour.

p The change effected in the nature of work as a result of technical progress, polytechnical training and the higher level of culture (stemming from more leisure time) will change the worker himself. People will not be confined to a single narrow profession. They will be able to choose their occupation or go over from one profession to another. The “partial” worker, who at present performs a definite production function, will become a versatile individual, the director of intricate production processes and the creator of cultural values. This is dealt with by the Programme of the G.P.S.U., which states: “Each is guaranteed 244 an equal and free choice of occupation and profession ’with due regard for the interests of society.” At the same time, this docs not exclude the division of labour between professions, between specialisation of the members of society. The citizen of communist society should not, however, be pictured as a person who can engage in any production or cultural activity, who may be a doctor today, a teacher tomorrow, and then a scientist, an engineer, an artist, and so forth. Communist production requires a high level of organisation, efficiency and discipline, and therefore every person will perform a definite function in a definite time. However, narrow, one-sided specialisation that chains a person to one form of activity will gradually disappear. Within the framework of occupations allied or close to their main profession people will have the possibility of freely changing and varying their work.

A certain division of labour between individual members of society will thus remain under communism, but it will lose its class social nature. It will acquire a purely professional character and ensure the people concerned with the possibility of varying their work in the sphere of material production.