people. Yes, organisation and discipline are the only strength of our Soviet Power, of the labour dictatorship, and of our proletarian authority; but the small bourgeoisie are shielding thmselves from this truth by revolutionary phraseology. Yes, the small bosses and proprietors are ready to help us proletarians to overthrow the landowners and capitalists, but after that our reads part. They do not like organisation and discipline; they are their enemiss. That is why we must carry on a relentless struggle with these bosses and proprietors, for in the sphere of organisation lies the beginning of our Socialist building. In answering those who insist that they are Socialists, and will grant the workers what they want and as much as they want, I say that Communism does not pre-suppose the existing productivity of labour. Our output, as a matter of fact, is too small. A heritage left to us by capitalism, especially in a backward country, is the habit of considering all State and exchequer property as material for misuse and corruption. The psychology of the masses of the small bourgeoisie is making itself felt at every step, and in this sphere the struggle is a very difficult one. Only an organised proletariat can cope with all this. That is why I wrote: "Until the higher phase of Communism is reached, Socialism requires the strictest control on the part of society and of the State." This I wrote before the October revolution, and I insist on it now.
The time has arrived when, having suppressed the bourgeoisie and broken its sabotage, we can begin this work. Before this was done the heroes of the day and of the revolution were the Red Guards, who were fulfilling their great historic task. They were taking up arms without the consent of the propertied classes; they were doing this great historic work in order to overthrow the exploiters, and to turn their rifles into instruments to protect the workers, in order to regulate labour protection and consumption. As yet we lack organisation, which is the basis of Socialism, and the pivot on which it revolves. Those who find such work monotonous and uninteresting are generally found among the idle classes of the small bourgeois. I say it again—it was impossible to take up this work until the Korniloffs, Alexieffs, and Kerenskis were disposed of. At present the armed resistance of the bourgeoisie has been suppressed. Our task is to allot work under our control to all those who have indulged in sabotage, to create administrative institutions for the strict supervision and control of all works. The country is going under for lack of the most elementary conditions of a normal existence after the war. The enemies who are attacking us are a real menace only in so far as we have failed to establish order and control. When one hears hundreds of thousands of just complaints about famine, and one knows that the cereals are there but cannot be shifted for lack of transport, and at the same time one hears jeers and protests on the part of the communists of the Left against, for instance, such measures as the railway decrees, one feels inclined to ask them: "Why do you not present your own draft of a decree? You are not irresponsible critics like the small bourgeois, the paltry merchants, who indulge in sabotage, and only criticise in order to pour out the vials of their wrath. I say it again, you are the guides of the Soviet organisations. Then why not produce your own decree?" But they cannot and never will produce it, because our railway decree is quite in order, and the dictatorship which it establishes meets with the approval of all the responsible railway workers. It, is only opposed by those paltry administrators who grab and accept bribes. It is only the waverers between Soviet Power and its enemies who cannot make up their minds about the decree, which is approved bv the proletariat who learned discipline from the big business concerns, and know that Socialism is impossible until production is organised on a large scale, and until a still stricter discipline is introduced. This proletariat backs us up in our railway policy; it will fight the small bourgeois element, and will demonstrate that the Russian Revolution will learn how to overcome its own lack of organisation, as it has overcome all the other obstacles. From the point of view of our immediate tasks, our foremost Mav Day watchword should be: "We have conquered capitalism, we shall also conquer our own unpreparedness." Only then Socialism will have achieved a complete victory.
(Translated from the Official Version in the "Isvestia," May 30th, 1918.)
15
