The Reward of Specialists
Let us take up the question from the practical side. Let us assume that the Russian Soviet Republic must have a thousand first-class scientists and specialists of recognized skill and with practical experience in different departments of science, to direct the work of the people in order to accomplish most quickly the economic rehabilitation of the country. Let us assume that these great "stars" must be paid 25,000 rubles each per annum. Let us assume that this sum must be doubled (supposing premiums to be granted for particularly successful and rapid accomplishment of the most important tasks of organization and technique) or even made four times as large (supposing that we must get several hundred better paid foreign specialists). Well then, can this expenditure of 50,000,000 or 100,000,000 rubles a year for the reorganization of the work of the people along the lines of the latest scientific developments be considered excessive or unbearable for the Soviet Republic? Of course not. The vast majority of the enlightened workers and peasants will approve such an expenditure, knowing from practical life that our backwardness compels us to lose billions, and that we have not yet attained such it high degree of organization, accounting and control which would cause the universal and voluntary participation of these "stars" of the bourgeois intelligentzia[1] in our work.
Of course, there is another side to this question. The corrupting influence of high salaries is beyond dispute—both on the Soviets (the more so since the swiftness of the revolution made it possible for a certain number of adventurers and thieves to join the Soviets, who together with the incapable and dishonest among certain commissaries would not object to becoming "star grafters") and on the mass of workers. But all thinking and honest workers and peasants will agree with us and will admit that we
- ↑ Middle class intellectuals form a separate entity in Russian society.
