ABSTRACT
Lenin, together with Trotsky, decided to 'militarize" labour and establish 'labour armies', as the Communist Manifesto had proposed. Lenin had envisaged in September 1917, before coming to power, the imposition of state service and use of the labour book, first for the rich and eventually for the entire population. The theories about the sudden upsurge of production under socialism, especially the expectation – as Lenin had set forth in State and Revolution – that the state would wither away, had been proved to be entirely unfounded. At the beginning of February 1921, in another 'revolution from the outside', the Red army invaded Georgia, where the Bolsheviks had polled only three per cent of the vote. Zinovyev, in March, also entered the limelight: he and Bela Kun were attempting to foment a revolution in Germany. Zinovyev was completely ignorant of the German situation and, together with Lenin, had overridden the councils of prudence offered by German Communists.
