No communism without abundance

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This is the exact quote I was looking for (page 11 of the text above).

"this development of productive forces ... is an absolutely necessary practical premise because without it want is merely made general, and with destitution the struggle for necessities and all the old filthy business would necessarily be reproduced"

Marx, The German Ideology, Part I, Feuerbach, Opposition of the Materialist and Idealist Outlook.

This remark seems commonplace, but its cold-eyed assessment of human nature contradicts the voluntarism which underlay Stalinism - and other over-enthusiastic projects to build the socialist utopia based on good intentions.