The Reconstruction of Moscow

of the workers and the tremendous increase in the wealtlb of the exploiting classes: "Luxury and extravagance have reached 1 unpre- cedented dimensions among, this class of the rich,, and the main streets of the large towns are linect with their princely palaces and luxurious castles. But, as capitalism girows^ the conditions of the workers, become worse . . . it became more and more difficult to find employment and alongside the luxurious pal- aces of the rich (or in the suburbs) the workers' hovels increased in number, the workers were com- pelled to live in cellars, in overcrowded, damp and cold tenements and sometimes even in dugouts near where new factory premises were beings bunt."* The leaders, land teachers 'of the working class did. not deal with oitopias after the example of the utopiant socialists, the predecessors of scientific socialism (Thomas. More, Tomas Gampanella, Charles Fourier, Robert Owen and lothers) . Moreover, they warned us against indulging: in fantasies concerning this momentous problem of" refashioning human life under the new conditions created by the socialist epoch. Thus, for example, Engels in 1872 in his brilliant work. The Housing Question, wrote; "How a social revolution would solve this" (the- housing) "question depends not only on the circum^ stances which wotuld exist in each case, but is also» connected with still more far-reaching questions^ among which one o£ the cmost fundamental is the- albolition of the antithesis between town and country. * Lenin, Selected Worics, Vol. I, p. 474, Co-operative Publishing Society, Moscow, 1935.

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