States has long since decided upon, experimented with and applied a whole series of measures of control which almost all involve the organisation of the population, the creation or encouragement of organisations of various kinds with the participation and supervision of the representatives of the Government. All these measures of control are of public notoriety, they have given rise to a flood of speeches and writings, and the laws on control published by the most advanced belligerent States have been translated into Russian or described in detail in our Press.
If our Government really wished practically and seriously to enforce control—if its institutions were not condemned to "complete inaction" for fear of displeasing the capitalists—the State has nothing more to do than borrow wholesale from the considerable number of measures of control already worked out and tried. The only obstacle in the way—an obstacle that the Cadets, the S.R.'s and the Mensheviks conceal from the eyes of the people—is that this control would expose the unbridled profiteering of the capitalists and would dry it up at the source.
To throw more light on this important question (which is nothing more nor less than the question of the programme of every revolutionary government that wants to save Russia from the war and from the famine) we are going to enumerate these chief measures of control and examine them separately.
We shall then see that for State control to be realised in the twinkling of an eye, a government—if it is to be called "revolutionary-democratic" otherwise than in derision—has only to decree, in the very first week of its existence, the application of the essential measures of control, to establish effective sanctions against the capitalists who attempt evasion, and to invite the population itself to supervise them and see to it that they are compelled to carry out the provisions of the law.
Here are the chief of these measures:—
(1) The merging of all banks into one, controlled by the State—the nationalisation of the banks, in other words.
(2) The nationalisation of the trusts; that is to say, of those very important capitalist groupings that exercise a monopoly (sugar, petroleum, coal, metals, &c.).[1]
(3) The suppression of business secrecy.
- ↑ Thus in 1912, the capitalist trust Prodameta sold 75 to 95 per cent. of the iron rails, axles, &c., that were sold in Russia; the trust Prodvagon executed 97 per cent. of the orders distributed in Russia; the same for coal.
