The Proletarian Revolution in Russia/Part 7/Chapter 3
III
MANAGEMENT AND PRODUCTION
Our work, under the direction of the proletariat, of organizing a universal accounting and control of production and distribution is considerably behind our work on the direct expropriation of the expropriators. To understand this is fundamentally necessary for a comprehension of the peculiarities of the present period and of the problem dictated to the Soviets by these peculiarities. The centre of gravity of the struggle with the bourgeoisie is shifted to the organization of accounting and control. This must be taken into account in order to determine correctly the urgent economic and financial problems with regard to the nationalization of the banks, nationalization of foreign trade, state control of currency, the introduction of a satisfactory (from the proletarian standpoint) wealth and income tax, and the introduction of obligatory labor service.
We are extremely backward in regard to Socialist reforms in these fields (and they are very important fields), and we are backward for no other reason than this—that accounting and control, in general, are not sufficiently organized. Of course, this problem is one of the most difficult, and in view of the economic disorganization produced by the war, its solution must take a long time, and it should not be overlooked that just here the bourgeoisie—and especially the numerous petty and peasant bourgeois—gives us a good deal of trouble, disturbing the establishment of control, disturbing, for instance, the grain monopoly, making opportunities for speculation and speculative trade. What we have already decreed is yet far from adequate realization, and the main problem of today consists precisely in concentrating all efforts upon the actual, practical realization of the measures which have already become law, but have not yet become reality.
In order to continue further the nationalization of the banks and to move steadily toward the transformation of the banks into centres of social bookkeeping under Socialism, we must first of all be successful in increasing the number of branches of the People's Bank, in attracting deposits, in making it easier for the public to deposit and withdraw money, in getting rid of the "waiting lines," in discovering and executing the grafters and crooks, etc. We must first actually accomplish the simplest tasks, organize what is already in our possession—and only then prepare for the more complex tasks.
We must improve and regulate the state monopolies (on grain, leather, etc.) which we have already established—and thereby prepare for the state monopolization of foreign trade; without such a monopoly we will not be able to "settle" with foreign capital by the payment of a "tribute." And the possibility of Socialist reconstruction depends on whether we shall be able to protect our internal economic independence during a certain transition period by paying some "tribute" to foreign capital.
We are also extremely backward in the collection of taxes, in general, and of wealth and income taxes, in particular. The levying of contributions on the bourgeoisie—a measure which in principle is undoubtedly acceptable and deserving proletarian approval—shows that we are in this respect still nearer to the methods of conquest (of Russia) from the rich for the poor, than to the methods of management. But, to become stronger and to make our position firm, we must adopt the latter methods, we must substitute for the contribution exacted from the bourgeoisie steady and regularly collected wealth and income taxes, which will give more to the proletarian state and which requires of us greater organization, and better regulated accounting and control.
The delay in introducing obligatory labor service is another proof that the most urgent problem is precisely the preparatory organization work, which, on the one hand, should definitely secure our gains, and, on the other hand, is necessary to prepare the campaign to "isolate capital" and "compel its surrender." The introduction of obligatory labor service should be started immediately, but it should be introduced gradually and with great caution, examining every step in practical experience, and, of course, introducing first of all obligatory labor service for the rich. The introduction of a labor record book and a consumption-budget record book for every bourgeois, including the village bourgeois, would be a serious step forward toward a complete "siege" of the enemy and toward the creation of a really universal accounting and control of production and distribution.
The state, an organ of oppression and robbery of the people, left to us, as a heritage, the greatest hatred and distrust of the people toward everything connected with the state. To overcome this is a very difficult task, which only the Soviets can master, but which requires even from them considerable time and tremendous perseverance. This "heritage" has a particularly painful effect on the question of accounting and control—a fundamental problem for the Socialist revolution after the overthrow of the bourgeoisie. It will inevitably take some time before the masses will begin to feel themselves free, after the overthrow of the land owners and the bourgeoisie, and will comprehend—not from books, but from their own, the Soviet, experience—will comprehend and come to feel that without thorough state accounting and control of production and distribution the authority of the toilers, and their freedom, cannot last, and a return to the yoke of Capitalism is inevitable.
All the habits and traditions of the bourgeoisie, and especially, of the petty bourgeoisie, are also opposed to state control, are for the inviolability of "sacred private property" and of "sacred" private enterprise.
It is especially clear to us now how correct is the Marxian proposition that anarchism and anarcho-syndicalism are bourgeois tendencies, irreconcilable with Socialism, with a proletarian dictatorship and with Communism. The struggle to install in the masses the idea of Soviet state control and accounting, for the realization of this idea, for a break with the accursed past, which accustomed the people to look upon the work of getting food and clothing as a "private" affair and on purchase and sale as something that "concerns only myself,"—this is the most momentous struggle, of universal historical significance, a struggle of Socialist consciousness against bourgeois-anarchistic "freedom." We have introduced workers' control as a law, but it is barely beginning to be realized or even penetrating the consciousness of the proletarian masses. That lack of accountability in production and distribution is fatal for the first steps toward Socialism, that it means corruption, that carelessness in accounting and control is a direct assistance to the German and Russian Kornilovs, who can overthrow the authority of the toilers only in case we do not solve the problem of accounting and control, and who with the aid of the peasant bourgeoisie, the Cadets, the Mensheviki and the Right Wing Social-Revolutionists are watching us, waiting for their opportunity,—this is not adequately emphasized in our agitation, and is not given sufficient thought or sufficient exposition by the advanced workers and peasants. And as long as workers' control has not become a fact, as long as the advanced workers have not carried out a successful and merciless campaign against those who violate this control or who are careless with regard to control,—until then we cannot advance from the first step (from workers' control) to the second step toward Socialism, that is, to the regulation of production by the workers.
A Socialist state can come into existence only as a system of production and consumption Communes, which keep conscientious accounts of their production and consumption, economize labor, and steadily increase productivity, thus making it possible to lower the work-day to seven, six or even fewer hours. Anything less than rigorous, universal, thorough accounting and control of grain and of the production of grain, and later of all other necessary products, wilt not do. We have inherited from Capitalism mass organizations, which facilitate the transition to mass accounting and control of distribution—the consumers' cooperatives. They are developed in Russia less than in the advanced countries, but they comprise more than 10,000,000 members. The decree on consumers' associations which was recently issued is extremely significant, showing clearly the peculiarity of the position and of the problem of the Socialist Soviet Republic at this time.
The decree is an agreement with the bourgeois cooperatives and with the workmen's cooperatives adhering to the bourgeois standpoint. The agreement or compromise consists, first, in the fact that representatives of these institutions not only participated in the deliberations on this decree, but practically obtained a deciding control, for parts of the decree which met determined opposition from these institutions were rejected. Secondly and essentially, the compromise consists in the rejection by the Soviet authority of the principle of voluntary admission to the cooperatives (the only consistent principle from the proletarian standpoint) uniting the whole population of a given locality in a single cooperative. The defection from this, the only Socialist principle, which is in accord with the problem of abolishing classes, allows the existence of "workmen's class cooperatives" (which, in this case, call themselves "class" cooperatives only because they submit to the class interests of the bourgeoisie). Lastly, the proposition of the Soviet government to completely exclude the bourgeoisie from the administration of the cooperatives was also considerably weakened, and only owners of capitalistic commercial and industrial enterprises are excluded from the administration.
If the proletariat, acting through the Soviets, would successfully establish accounting and control on a national scale, there would be no need for such compromises. Through the Food Departments of the Soviets, through their organs of supply, we would unite the population in one cooperative directed by the proletariat, without assistance from bourgeois cooperatives, without concessions to the purely bourgeois principle which compels the labor cooperatives to remain side by side with the bourgeois cooperatives instead of wholly subjecting these bourgeois cooperatives and uniting both.
Entering into such an agreement with the bourgeois cooperatives, the Soviet authority has concretely defined its tactical problems and characteristic methods of action for the present stage of development,—by directing the bourgeois elements, using them, making certain individual concessions to them, we are creating conditions for a forward movement which will be slower than we at first supposed, but at the same time more steadfast, with a more solidly protected base and line of communications, and with better fortification of the conquered positions. The Soviets can (and should) now measure their successes in the work of Socialist reconstruction, among others, by very simple and practical tests; in exactly what number of communities (communes, or villages, blocks, etc.) and to what extent does the development of the cooperatives approach the state when they will comprise the whole population?
In every Socialist revolution,—after the proletariat has solved the problem of conquest of power, and to the extent to which the problem of expropriating the expropriators and suppressing their resistance is in the main and fundamentally solved,—it becomes necessary to turn first of all to the fundamental problem of the creation of a social system, higher than Capitalism, namely: to raise the productivity of labor and, in connection with this (and for this), its higher organization. Our Soviet power is in just such a position, now that, thanks to its victories over the exploiters from Kerensky to Kornilov, it has become possible for it to approach this problem directly and to take hold of it. And here it becomes at once clear that, if it is possible to seize the central state power in a few days, if it is possible to suppress the military resistance and the sabotage of the expoiters even in the remote corners of a large country in several weeks, a final solution of the problem of increasing the productivity of labor requires at least several years (especially after a most distressing and destructive war). The decisive character of this work is determined by purely objective circumstances.
To increase the productivity of labor we must first of all secure the material basis of large industry: the development of the production of fuel, iron, machinery and of the chemical industry. The Russian Soviet Republic is in such an advantageous position that it possesses, even after the Brest-Litovsk peace, colossal stores of ore (in the Ural); of fuel, in Western Siberia (hard coal); in Caucasia and in the Southeast (petroleum); in central Russia (pasture); vast resources of lumber, water-power and raw material for the chemical industry (Karabugas) and so on. The exploitation of these natural resources by the latest technical methods will furnish a basis for an unprecedented development of production.
Higher productivity of labor depends, firstly, on the improvement of the educational and cultural condition of the masses of the population. This improvement is now taking place with unusual swiftness, but is not perceived by those who are blinded by the bourgeois routine and are unable to comprehend what a longing for light and initiative is now pervading the masses of the people, thanks to the Soviet organizations. Secondly, economic improvement depends on higher discipline of the toilers, on higher skill, efficiency and intensity of labor and its better organization.
In this respect our situation is especially bad and even hopeless,—if we should take the word of those who are frightened by the bourgeoisie or who are paid to serve it. These people do not understand that there has never been, nor can there ever be, a revolution in which the adherents of the old regime would not wail about disorganization, anarchy, etc. It is natural that among the masses who have just overthrown an incredibly barbarous oppression, there is a profound and widespread unrest and ferment, that the development of a new basis of labor discipline is a very long- process; that before the land owners and the bourgeoisie had been overcome, such a development could not even begin.
But, without being influenced by this despair, often pretended, which is spread by the bourgeoisie and the bourgeois intellectuals (who have given up hope of retaining their old privileges), we should by no means conceal any manifest evils. On the contrary, we will expose them and improve the Soviet methods of combating them, for the success of Socialism is inconceivable without the victory of conscious proletarian discipline against the instinctive petty bourgeois anarchy, this real guarantee of a possible restoration of Kerenskyism and Kornilovism.
The most conscious vanguard of the Russian proletariat has already turned to the problem of strengthening labor discipline. For instance, the central committee of the Metallurgical Union and the Central Council of the Trade Unions have begun work on respective measures and drafts of decrees. This work should be supported and advanced by all means. We should immediately introduce piece work and try it out in practice. We should try every scientific and progressive suggestion of the Taylor system, we should compare earnings with the general total of production or the operation results of railroad and water transportation, and so on.
The Russian is a poor worker in comparison with the advanced nations and this could not be otherwise under the regime of the Czar and other remnants of feudalism. To learn how to work—this problem the Soviet authority should present to the people in all its aspects. The last word of Capitalism in this respect, the Taylor system—as well as all progressive measures of Capitalism—combines the refined cruelty of bourgeois exploitation and a number of most valuable scientific achievements in the analysis of mechanical motions during work, in dismissing superfluous and useless motions, in determining the most correct methods of work, the best systems of accounting and control, etc. The Soviet Republic must adopt all valuable scientific and technical advances in this field. The possibility of Socialism will be determined by our success in combining the Soviet rule and the Soviet organization of management with the latest progressive measures of Capitalism. We must introduce in Russia the study and the teaching of the Taylor system and its systematic trial and adaptation. While working to increase the productivity of labor, we must at the same time take into account the peculiarities of the transition period from Capitalism to Socialism which require, on the one hand, that we lay the foundation for the Socialist organization of emulation, and, on the other, that we use compulsion so that the slogan of the dictatorship of the proletariat may not be weakened by the practice of a too mild proletarian government.
Among the absurdities which the bourgeois is fain to spread about Socialism is the one that Socialists deny significance of emulation. In reality Socialism, by destroying classes and, hence, the enslavement of the masses, for the first time opens up the road for emulation on a really mass scale. And only the Soviet organization, passing from the formal democracy of a bourgeois republic to the actual participation of the toiling masses in management, for the first time allows emulation on a broad basis. It is much easier to organize emulation in the political than in the economic field, but for the success of Socialism the latter is the more important.
Let us take publicity as a means for the organization of emulation. A bourgeois republic establishes this only formally, actually subjecting the press to capital, amusing the "mob" with spicy political trifles, concealing the occurrence, in the factories, commercial transactions, etc., as a "business secrct," protecting "sacred property." The Soviets abolished commercial secrecy and started on a new road, but have done hardly anything to make use of publicity in the interest of economic emulation. We must systematically endeavor,—along with the merciless suppression of the thoroughly false and insolently caluminous bourgeois press,—to create a press which shall not amuse and fool the masses with spicy political trifles, but which will bring to the attention of the masses and help them to study seriously the questions of every-day economics. Every factory; every village is a production and consumption Commune having the right and duty to apply the general Soviet regulations in its own way (not in the sense of violating the regulations, but in the sense of a diversity of forms in carrying them out), to solve in its own way the problem of accounting in production and distribution. Under Capitalism this was the "private affair" of the individual capitalist or land owner. Under the Soviets this is not a private affair, but a most important public concern.
And we have hardly begun the immense and difficult, but also promising and important work of organizing emulation between the Communes, of introducing reports and publicity in the process of the production of bread, clothing, etc., of transforming the dry, dead bureaucratic reports into living things—either repulsive or attractive.
Under the capitalistic system of production the significance of an individual example, say, of some group of producers, was inevitably extremely limited, and it was only a petty bougeois illusion to dream that Capitalism could be "reformed" by the influence of models of virtuous establishments. After political power has passed into the hands of the proletariat and after the expropriation of the expropriators has been accomplished, the situation is radically changed, and—as was many times pointed out by the most eminent Socialists—the force of an example can then for the first time exert a mass effect. Model Communes should and will serve the purpose of training, teaching and stimulating the backward Communes. The press should serve as a weapon of Socialist construction, giving publicity in all details to the success of the model Communes, studying the principles of their success, their methods of economy, and, on the other hand, "blacklisting" those Communes which persist in keeping the "traditions of Capitalism," that is, anarchy, loafing, disorder and speculation. Statistics under Capitalism were used exclusively by government employes or narrow specialists,—we must bring them to the masses, we must popularize them so that the toilers may gradually learn to understand and to see for themselves what work and how much work is needed, and how much rest they can have; so that a comparison between the results of the enterprise of different Communes may become a subject of general interest and study; that the foremost Communes may be immediately rewarded (by reducing the workday for a certain period, raising the wages, granting a larger measure of cultural or historical privileges and treasures, and so forth).
The appearance on the historical stage of a new class in the role of a leader of society never occurs without a period of upheavals, struggles and storms, on the one hand,—and, on the other, without a period of false steps, experiments, wavering and hesitation with regard to the choice of new methods that will fit the new objective circumstances. The perishing feudal nobility was accustomed to false revenge on the bourgeoisie, which was conquering and displacing them, not only by conspiracies, attempts at insurrections and restoration, but also by torrents of ridicule at the inability, clumsiness, and blunders of the "insolent upstarts" who dared to take hold of the "sacred helm" of the state without the ancient training for this work, of the princes, barons, nobility and aristocracy,—quite like the revenge of the Kornilovs and Kerenskys, Gotz and Martovs, all those heroes of bourgeois morality or bourgeois scepticism, on the working class of Russia for its "insolent" attempt to seize power.
Of course, many months and years must pass before the new social class, a class heretofore oppressed and crushed by want and ignorance, can become accustomed to the new situation, can take account of everything, regulate its work and produce its own organizers. It is self-understood that the party which leads the revolutionary proletariat could not gain the practical experience of large organizations and enterprises counting on millions and tens of millions of citizens; that to change the old, almost exclusively agitational habits must take a good deal of time. But it is not impossible, and—provided we have a clear understanding of the necessity of the change, a firm determination to accomplish it, and persistence in pursuing a great and difficult end,—we will attain it. There is a great deal of organizing talent in the "people," among the workers and among the peasants who are not exploiters; they had been oppressed, ruined and discarded by the thousands, by capital; we do not as yet know how to find them, how to encourage, assist them and give them prominence. But we will learn it, provided we start learning with the full revolutionary zeal without which no revolution can be victorious.
No profound and powerful popular movement in history ever escaped paying a price to the scum—the inexperienced innovators are preyed upon by adventurers and crooks, boasters and shouters; there will be stupid confusion, unnecessary bustle; individual "leaders" will undertake twenty tasks at once, accomplishing none of them. Let the poodles of bourgeois society scream and bark because of each additional splinter going to waste while the big old forest is cut down. It is their business to bark at the proletarian elephant. Let them bark. We will go ahead, trying very cautiously and patiently to test and discover real organizers, people with sober minds and practical sense, who combine loyalty to Socialism with the ability to organize quietly (and in spite of confusion and noise) the efficient and harmonious team work of a large number of people under the Soviet organization. Only such persons should, after many trials, advancing them from the simplest to the most difficult tasks, be promoted to responsible posts to direct the work of the people, to direct the management. We have not yet learned this. We will learn.