of our time, according to the Communists, are questions of class
conflict, and will disappear when the division of classes disappears.
Accordingly the State will no longer be required, since the State is
essentially an engine of power designed to give the victory to one
side in the class conflict. Ordinary States are designed to give the
victory to the capitalists; the proletarian State (Soviet Russia) is
designed to give the victory to the wage-earners. As soon as the
community contains only wage-earners, the State will cease to have any
functions. And so, through a period of dictatorship, we shall finally
arrive at a condition very similar to that aimed at by Anarchist
Communism.

Three questions arise in regard to this method of reaching Utopia.
First, would the ultimate state foreshadowed by the Bolsheviks be
desirable in itself? Secondly, would the conflict involved in
achieving it by the Bolshevik method be so bitter and prolonged that
its evils would outweigh the ultimate good? Thirdly, is this method
likely to lead, in the end, to the state which the Bolsheviks desire,
or will it fail at some point and arrive at a quite different result?
If we are to be Bolsheviks, we must answer all these questions in a
sense favourable to their programme.

As regards the first question, I have no hesitation in answering it in
a manner favourable to Communism. It is clear that the present
inequalities of wealth are unjust. In part, they may be defended as
affording an incentive to useful industry, but I do not think this
defence will carry us very far. However, I have argued this question
before in my book on _Roads to Freedom_, and I will not spend time
upon it now. On this matter, I concede the Bolshevik case. It is the
other two questions that I wish to discuss.