Chapter XII: Jurisdiction of the Local Organs of the Soviets (5)

(1) Factory Councils. These may be called the true factory Soviets. They existed in most factories, large and small alike, their size varying in proportion to the number of workers employed. In a small factory the Council might consist of seven or nine members; in a large factory the number might be sixty. The latter figure seems rarely to have been exceeded. Most of the Councils were elected by the workers directly, upon a basis of equal suffrage, every wage-worker, whether skilled or unskilled, male or female, being entitled to vote. Boys and girls were on the same footing as their elders in this respect. Generally the voting was done at mass-meetings, held during working-hours, the ordinary method being a show of hands. While there were exceptions to this rule, it was rare that foremen, technical supervisors, or other persons connected with the management were permitted to vote. In some cases the Council was elected indirectly, that is to say, it was selected by a committee, called the Workshop Committee. The Factory Council was not elected for any specified period of time, as a rule, and where a definite period for holding office was fixed, the right of recall was so easily invoked, and was so freely exercised, that the result was the same as if there had been no such provision. As a result of the nervous tension of the time, the inevitable reaction against long-continued repression, there was much friction at first and recalls and re-elections were common. The present writer has received several reports, from sources of indubitable authority, of factories in which two, and even three, Council elections were held in less than one month! Of course, this is an incidental fact, ascribable to the environment rather than to the institution. The Councils held their meetings during working-hours, the members receiving full pay for the time thus spent. Usually the Council would hold a daily meeting, and it was not uncommon for the meetings to last all day, and even into the evening--overtime being paid for the extra hours. Emile Vandervelde, the Belgian Socialist Minister of State--a most sympathetic observer--is authority for the statement that in one establishment in Petrograd, employing 8,000 skilled workers, the Factory Council, composed of forty-three men who each earned sixteen rubles per day of eight hours, sat regularly eight hours per day.[24]

[24] _Three Aspects of the Russian Revolution_, by Emile Vandervelde, p. 71.

To describe fully the functions of the Factory Councils would require many pages, so complex were they. Only a brief synopsis of their most important rights and duties is possible here. Broadly speaking, they possessed the right of control over everything, but no responsibility for successful management and administration. In their original form, and where the owners still remained at the head, the Councils did not interfere in such matters as the securing of raw materials, for example. They did not interest themselves in the financial side of the undertaking, at least not to see that its operations were profitable. Their concern was to control the working conditions and to “guard the interests of the workers.” They sometimes assumed the right to refuse to do work upon contracts of which they disapproved. Jealous in their exercise of the right to _control_, they would assume no responsibility for _direction_. At the same time, however, they asserted--and generally enforced--their right to determine everything relating to the engaging or dismissal of workers, the fixing of wages, hours of labor, rules of employment, and so on, as well as _the selection of foremen, superintendents, technical experts, and even the principal managers of the establishments_. Professor Ross quotes the statement made by the spokesman of the employers at Baku, adding that the men did strike and win:

They ask that we grant leave on pay for a certain period to
a sick employee. Most of us are doing that already. They
stipulate that on dismissal an employee shall receive a month’s
pay for every year he has been in our service. Agreed. They
demand that no workman be dismissed without the consent of
a committee representing the men. That’s all right. They
require that we take on new men from a list submitted by
them. That’s reasonable enough. They know far better than we
can whether or not a fellow is safe to work alongside of in
a dangerous business like ours. But when they demand control
over the hiring and firing of _all_ our employees--foremen,
superintendents, and managers as well as workmen--we balk.
We don’t see how we can yield that point without losing the
control essential to discipline and efficiency. Yet if we don’t
sign to-night, they threaten to strike.[25]

[25] _Russia in Upheaval_, by E. A. Ross, p. 277.

(2) Workshop Committees. This term was sometimes used instead of “Factory Councils,” particularly in the case of smaller factories, and much confusion in the published reports of the time may be attributed to this fact. Nothing is gained by an arbitrary division of Factory Councils on the basis of size, since there was no material difference in functions or methods. The term “Workshop Committee” was, however, applied to a different organization entirely, which was to be found in practically every large industrial establishment, along with, and generally subordinated to, the Factory Council. These committees usually carried out the policies formulated by the superior Factory Councils. They did the greater part of the work usually performed by a foreman, and their functions were sometimes summed up in the term “collective foremanship.” They decided who should be taken on and who employed; they decided when fines or other forms of punishment should be imposed for poor work, sabotage, and other offenses. The foreman was immediately responsible to them. Appeals from the decisions of these committees might be made to the Councils, either by the owners or the workers. Like the Councils, the committees were elected by universal, equal voting at open meetings; indeed, in some cases, only the Workshop Committee was so elected, being charged with the task of selecting the Factory Council.

(3) Wages Committees. These committees existed in the large establishments, as a rule, especially those in which the labor employed was of many kinds and varying degrees of skill. Like all other factory organizations, they were elected by vote of the employees. Responsible to the Factory Councils, though independently elected, the Wages Committees classified all workers into their respective wage-groups, fixed prices for piece-work, and so on. They could, and frequently did, decide these matters independently, without consulting the management at all.

(4) Committees of Arbitration and Adjustment. These seem to have been less common than the other committees already described. Elected solely by the workers, in the same manner as the other bodies described, they were charged with hearing and settling disputes arising, no matter from what cause. They dealt with the charges brought by individual employees, whether against the employers or against fellow-employees; they dealt, also, with complaints by the workers as a whole against conditions, with disputes over wages, and so on. _In all cases of disputes between workers and employers the decision was left entirely to the elected representatives of the workers._

The foregoing gives a very fair idea of the proletarian machinery set up in the factories under the Provisional Government. In one factory might be found operating these four popularly elected representative bodies, all of them holding meetings in working-hours and being paid for the time consumed; all of them involving more or less frequent elections. No matter how moderate and restrained the description may be, the impression can hardly fail to be one of appalling wastefulness and confusion. As a matter of fact, there is very general agreement that in practice, after the first few weeks, what seems a grotesque system worked reasonably well, or, at least, far better than its critics had believed possible. Of course, there _was_ much overlapping of functions; there _was_ much waste. On the other hand, wasteful strikes were avoided and the productive processes were maintained. Of course, the experiment was made under abnormal conditions. Not very much in the way of certain conclusion can be adduced from it. Opponents of the Soviet theory and system will always point to the striking decline of productive efficiency and say that it was the inevitable result of the Soviet control; believers in the theory and the system will say that the inefficiency would have been greater but for the Soviets.

That there was an enormous decline in productive efficiency during the early part of the period of Soviet control cannot be disputed. The evidence of this is too overwhelmingly conclusive. As early as April, 1917, serious reports of this decline began to be made. It was said that in some factories the per capita daily production was less than a third of what it was a few weeks before. The air was filled with charges that the workers were loafing and malingering. On April 11th Tseretelli denounced these “foul slanders” at a meeting of the Petrograd Soviet and was wildly cheered. Nevertheless, one fact stood out--namely, the sharp decline in productivity in almost every line. There were not a few cases in which the owners and highly trained managers were forced out entirely and their places filled by wholly incompetent men possessing no technical training at all. An extreme illustration is quoted by Ross:[26] In a factory in southern Russia the workers forced the owner out and then undertook to run the plant themselves. When they had used up the small supply of raw material they had they began to sell the machines out of the works in order to get money to buy more raw material; then, when they obtained the raw material, they lacked the machinery for working it up. Of course, the incident is simply an illustration of extreme folly, merely. Men misuse safety razors to commit suicide with in extreme cases, and the misuse of Soviet power in isolated cases proves little of value. On the other hand, the case cited by Ross is only an extreme instance of a very general practice. Many factories were taken over in the same way, after the competent directors had been driven out, and were brought to ruin by the Soviets. It was a general practice or, at any rate, a common one, which drew from Skobelev, Minister of Labor, this protest, which _Izvestia_ published at the beginning of May:

[26] Ross, _op. cit._, p. 283.

The seizure of factories makes workmen without any experience
in management, and without working capital, temporarily masters
of such undertakings, but soon leads to their being closed
down, or to the subjugation of the workmen to a still harder
taskmaster.

On July 10th Skobelev issued another stirring appeal to the workers, pointing out that “the success of the struggle against economic devastation depends upon the productivity of labor, and pointing out the danger of the growing anarchy. The appeal is too long to quote in its entirety, but the following paragraphs give a good idea of it, and, at the same time, indicate how serious the demoralization of the workers had become:

Workmen, comrades, I appeal to you at a critical period of
the Revolution. Industrial output is rapidly declining, the
quantity of necessary manufactured articles is diminishing, the
peasants are deprived of industrial supplies, we are threatened
with fresh food complications and increasing national
destitution.

* * * * *

The Revolution has swept away the oppression of the police
régime, which stifled the labor movement, and the liberated
working-class is enabled to defend its economic interests by
the mere force of its class solidarity and unity. They possess
the freedom of strikes, they have professional unions, which
can adapt the tactics of a mass economic movement, according to
the conditions of the present economic crisis.

However, at present purely elemental tendencies are gaining the
upper hand over organized movement, and without regard to the
limited resources of the state, and without any reckoning as
to the state of the industry in which you are employed, and to
the detriment of the proletarian class movement, you sometimes
obtain an increase of wages which disorganizes the enterprise
and drains the exchequer.

Frequently the workmen refuse all negotiations and by menace
of violence force the gratification of their demands. They
use violence against officials and managers, dismiss them of
their own accord, interfere arbitrarily with the technical
management, and even attempt to take the whole enterprise into
their own hands.

* * * * *

_Workmen, comrades, our socialistic ideals shall be attained
not by the seizure of separate factories, but by a high
standard of economic organization, by the intelligence of the
masses, and the wide development of the country’s productive
forces...._ Workmen, comrades, remember not only your rights,
but also your duties; think not only of your wishes, but of
the possibilities of granting them, not only of your own good,
but of the sacrifices necessary for the consolidation of the
Revolution and the triumph of our ideals.

In July the per capita output in the munition-works of Petrograd was reported as being only 25 per cent. of what it was at the beginning of the year. In August Kornilov told the Moscow Democratic Conference that the productivity of the workers in the great gun and shell plants had declined 60 per cent., as compared with the three months immediately prior to the Revolution; that the decline at the aeroplane-factories was still greater, not less than 70 per cent. No denial of this came from the representatives of the Soviets. In Petrograd, Nijni-Novgorod, Saratov, and other large centers there was an estimated general decline of production of between 60 and 70 per cent.

The representatives of the workers, the Soviet leaders, said that the decline, which they admitted, was due to causes over which the Soviets had no control to a far greater degree than to any conscious or unconscious sabotage by the workers. They admitted that many of the workers had not yet got used to freedom; that they interpreted it as meaning freedom from work. There was a very natural reaction, they said, against the tremendous pace which had been maintained under the old régime. They insisted, however, that this temporary failing of the workers was a minor cause only, and that far greater causes were (1) deterioration of machinery; (2) withdrawal for military reasons and purposes of many of the most capable and efficient workers; (3) shortage and poor quality of materials.

There is room here for an endless controversy, and the present writer does not intend to enter into it. He is convinced that the three causes named by the Soviet defenders were responsible for a not inconsiderable proportion of the decline in productivity, but that the Soviets and the impaired morale of the workers were the main causes. In the mining of coal and iron, the manufacture of munitions, locomotives, textiles, metal goods, paper, and practically everything else, the available reports show an enormous increase in production cost per unit, accompanied by a very great decline in average per capita production. It is true that there were exceptions to this rule, that there were factories in which, after the first few days of the revolutionary excitation in March, production per capita rose and was maintained at a high level for a long time--until the Bolsheviki secured ascendancy in those factories, in fact. The writer has seen and examined numerous reports indicating this, but prefers to confine himself to the citation of such reports as come with the authority of responsible and trusted witnesses.

Such a report is that of the Social Democrat, the workman Menshekov, concerning the Ijevski factory with its 40,000 workmen, and of the sales department of which he was made manager when full Soviet control was established. In that position he had access to the books showing production for the years 1916, 1917, and 1918, and the figures show that under the Provisional Government production rose, but that it declined with the rise of Bolshevism among the workers and declined more rapidly when the Bolsheviki gained control. Such another witness is the trades-unionist and Social Democrat, Oupovalov, concerning production in the great Sormovo Works, in the Province of Nijni-Novgorod, which during the war employed 20,000 persons. Not only was production maintained, but there was even a marked improvement. The writer has been permitted to examine the documentary evidence in the possession of these men and believes that it fully confirms and justifies the claim that, where there was an earnest desire on the part of the workers to maintain and even to improve production, this proved possible under Soviet control.

The fact seems quite clear to the writer (though perhaps impossible to prove by an adequate volume of concrete evidence) that the impaired morale of the workers which resulted in lessened production was due to two principal causes, namely, Bolshevist propaganda and the lack of an intelligent understanding on the part of masses of workers who were not mentally or morally ready for the freedom which was suddenly thrust upon them. The condition of these latter is readily understood and appreciated. The disciplines and self-compulsions of freedom are not learned in a day. When we reflect upon the conditions that obtained under czarism, we can hardly wonder that so many of the victims of those conditions should have mistaken license for liberty, or that they should have failed to see the vital connection between their own honest effort in the shop and the success of the Revolution they were celebrating.

All through the summer the Bolsheviki were carrying on their propaganda among the workers in the shops as well as among the troops at the front. Just as they preached desertion to the soldiers, so they preached sabotage and advocated obstructive strikes among the workers in the factories. This was a logical thing for them to do; they wanted to break up the military machine in order to compel peace, and a blow at that machine was as effective when struck in the factory as anywhere else. For men who were preaching mass desertion and mutiny at the front, sabotage in the munition-works at the rear, or in the transportation service on which the army depended, was a logical policy. It is as certain as anything can be that the Bolshevist agitation was one of the primary causes of the alarming decrease in the production during the régime of the Provisional Government. On the other hand, the Socialist leaders who supported the Provisional Government waged a vigorous propaganda among the workers, urging them to increase production. Where they made headway, in general there production was maintained, or the decline was relatively small. The counterpart of that patriotism which Kerensky preached among the troops at the front with such magnificent energy was preached among the factory-workers. Here is what Jandarmov says:

It is a mistake to suppose that output was interfered with,
for, to do our working-class justice, nowhere was work delayed
for more than two days, and in many factories this epoch-making
development was taken without a pause in the ordinary routine.

I cannot too strongly insist upon the altogether unanimous
idealism of those early days. There was not an ugly streak
in that beautiful dawn where now the skies are glowering and
red and frightful. I say that output was speeded up. I, as
chairman of the first Soviet,[27] assure you that we received
fifty-seven papers from workmen containing proposals for
increasing the efficiency of the factory; and that spirit
lasted three months, figures of output went well up and old
closed-down factories were reopened. _New Russia was bursting
with energy--the sluice-gates of our character were unlocked._

[27] That is, “first Soviet” at the Lisvinsk factory, about seventy miles from Perm.

There must have been a great deal of that exalted feeling among the intelligent working-men of Russia in those stirring times. No one who has known anything of the spiritual passion, of sacrificial quality, which has characterized the Russian revolutionary movement can doubt this. Of course, Jandarmov is referring to the early months before Bolshevism began to spread in that district. Then there was a change. It was the old, old story of rapidly declining production:

But after the first few months the workers as a whole began to
fall under the spell of catchwords and stock phrases. Agitation
began among the lower workers. Bolshevism started in the ranks
of unskilled labor. They clamored for the reduction of hours
and down went the output. The defenders of the idea of the
shortest possible working-day were the same men who afterward
turned out very fiends of Bolshevism and every disorder. I
watched the growing of their madness and the development of
their claims, each more impossible than the last.

In the Kiselovski mines the output of 2,000,000 poods monthly
dropped to 300,000, and the foundries of Upper Serginski
produced 1,200 poods of iron instead of 2,000. Why such a fall?
The engineers wondered how workers could reduce output to such
an extent if they tried, but one soon ceased to wonder at the
disasters that followed in quick succession.

There was anarchy in the factories and a premium on idleness
became the order of the day. It was a positive danger to work
more than the laziest unskilled laborer, because this was the
type of man who always seemed to get to the top of the Soviet.
“Traitor to the interests of Labor” you were called if you
exceeded the time limit, which soon became two hours a day.[28]

[28] These extracts are from a personal report by Jandarmov, sent to the present writer.

By September, 1917, a healthy reaction against the abuses of Soviet industrial control was making itself felt in the factories. The workers were making less extravagant demands and accepting the fact that they could gain nothing by paralyzing production; that reducing the quantity and the quality of production can only result in disaster to the nation, and, most of all, to the workers themselves. In numerous instances the factory Soviets had called back the owners they had forced out, and the managers and technical directors they had dismissed, and restored the authority of foremen. In other words, they ceased to be controlling authorities and became simply consultative bodies. While, therefore, they were becoming valuable democratic agencies, the economic power and influence of the Soviets was waning.

On the day of the _coup d’état_, November 7, 1917, the Bolshevist Military Revolutionary Committee issued a special proclamation which said, “The goal for which the people fought, the immediate proposal of a democratic peace, the abolition of private landed property, _labor control of industry_, the establishment of a Soviet Government--all this is guaranteed.” Seven days later, November 14th, a decree was issued, giving an outline of the manner in which the control of industry by the Soviets was to be organized and carried out. The principal features of this outline plan are set forth in the following paragraphs:

(1) In order to put the economic life of the country on an
orderly basis, control by the workers is instituted over all
industrial, commercial, and agricultural undertakings and
societies; and those connected with banking and transport, as
well as over productive co-operative societies which employ
labor or put out work to be done at home or in connection with
the production, purchase, and sale of commodities and of raw
materials, and with conservation of such commodities as well as
regards the financial aspect of such undertakings.

(2) Control is exercised by all the workers of a given
enterprise through the medium of their elected organs, such
as factories and works committees, councils of workmen’s
delegates, etc., such organs equally comprising representatives
of the employees and of the technical staff.

(3) In each important industrial town, province, or district
is set up a local workmen’s organ of control, which, being the
organ of the soldiers’, workmen’s, and peasants’ council, will
comprise the representatives of the labor unions, workmen’s
committees, and of any other factories, as well as of workmen’s
co-operative societies.

* * * * *

(5) Side by side with the Workmen’s Supreme Council of the
Labor Unions, committees of inspection comprising technical
specialists, accountants, etc. These committees, both on their
own initiative or at the request of local workmen’s organs of
control, proceed to a given locality to study the financial and
technical side of any enterprise.

(6) The Workmen’s Organs of Control have the right to supervise
production, to fix a minimum wage in any undertaking, and to
take steps to fix the prices at which manufactured articles are
to be sold.

(7) The Workmen’s Organs of Control have the right to control
all correspondence passing in connection with the business
of an undertaking, being held responsible before a court of
justice for diverting their correspondence. Commercial secrets
are abolished. The owners are called upon to produce to the
Workmen’s Organs of Control all books and moneys in hand, both
relating to the current year and to any previous transactions.

(8) The decisions of the Workmen’s Organs of Control are
binding upon the owners of undertakings, and cannot be
nullified save by the decision of a Workmen’s Superior Organ of
Control.

(9) Three days are given to the owners, or the administrators
of a business, to appeal to a Workmen’s Superior Court of
Control against the decisions filed by any of the lower organs
of Workmen’s Control.

(10) In all undertakings, the owners and the representatives
of workmen and of employees delegated to exercise control
on behalf of the workmen, are responsible to the government
for the maintenance of strict order and discipline, and
for the conservation of property (goods). Those guilty of
misappropriating materials and products, of not keeping books
properly, and of similar offenses, are liable to prosecution.

* * * * *

It was not until December 27, 1917--seven weeks after their arbitrary seizure of the reins of government--that the Bolsheviki published the details of their scheme. Both the original preliminary outline and the later carefully elaborated scheme made it quite evident that, no matter how loudly and grandiloquently Lenin, Trotsky, Miliutin, Smedevich, and others might talk about the “introduction” of workers’ control, in point of fact they were only thinking of giving a certain legal status to the Soviet system of control already in operation. That system, as we have already seen, had been in their hands for some time. They had used it to destroy efficiency, to cripple the factories and assist in paralyzing the government and the military forces of the nation. Now that they were no longer an opposition party trying to upset the government, but were themselves the _de facto_ government, the Bolsheviki could no longer afford to pursue the policy of encouraging the factory Soviets to sabotage. Maximum production was the first necessity of the Bolshevist Government, quite as truly as it had been for the Provisional Government, and as it must have been for any other government. Sabotage in the factories had been an important means of combating the Provisional Government, but now it must be quickly eliminated. So long as they were in the position of being a party of revolt the Bolshevist leaders were ready to approve the seizure of factories by the workers, regardless of the consequences to industrial production or to the military enterprises dependent upon that production. As the governing power of the nation, in full possession of the machinery of government, such ruinous action by the workers could not be tolerated. For the same reasons, the demoralization of the army, which they had laboriously fostered, must now be arrested.

In the instructions to the All-Russian Council of Workers’ Control, published December 27, 1917, we find no important _extension_ of the existing Soviet control; we do, however, find its _legalization with important limitations_. These limitations, moreover, are merely legalistic formulations of the modifications already developed in practice and obtaining in many factories. A comparison of the full text of the instructions with the account of the system of factory control under the Provisional Government will demonstrate this beyond doubt.[29] The control in each enterprise is to be organized “either by the Shop or Factory Committee or by the General Assembly of workers and employees of the enterprise, who elect a Special Commission of Control” (Article I). In “large-scale enterprises” the election of such a Control Commission is compulsory. To the Commission of Control is given sole authority to “enter into relations with the management upon the subject of control,” though it may give authorization to other workers to enter into such relations if it sees fit (Article III). The Control Commission must make report to the general body of workers and employees in the enterprise “at least twice a month” (Article IV). The article (No. 5) which deals with and defines the “Duties and Privileges of the Control Commission” is so elaborate that it is almost impossible to summarize it without injustice. It is, therefore, well to quote it in full.

[29] This important document is printed in full at the end of the book as an Appendix.

V. The Control Commission of each enterprise is required:

1. To determine the stock of goods and fuel possessed by the
plant, and the amount of these needed respectively for the
machinery of production, the technical personnel, and the
laborers by specialties.

2. To determine to what extent the plant is provided with
everything that is necessary to insure its normal operation.

3. To forecast whether there is danger of the plant closing
down or lowering production, and what the causes are.

4. To determine the number of workers by specialties likely to
be unemployed, basing the estimate upon the reserve supply and
the expected receipts of fuel and materials.

5. _To determine the measures to be taken to maintain
discipline in work among the workers and employees._

6. To superintend the execution of the decisions of
governmental agencies regulating the buying and selling of
goods.

7. (_a_) _To prevent the arbitrary removal of machines,
materials, fuel, etc., from the plant without authorization
from the agencies which regulate economic affairs, and to see
that inventories are not tampered with._

(_b_) To assist in explaining the causes of the lowering of
production and to take measures for raising it.

8. To assist in elucidating the possibility of a complete or
partial utilization of the plant for some kind of production
(especially how to pass from a war to a peace footing, and
what kind of production should be undertaken), to determine
what changes should be made in the equipment of the plant and
in the number of its personnel, to accomplish this purpose; to
determine in what period of time these changes can be effected;
to determine what is necessary in order to make them, and the
probable amount of production after the change is made to
another kind of manufacture.

9. To aid in the study of the possibility of developing the
kinds of labor required by the necessities of peace-times,
such as the methods of using three shifts of workmen, or any
other method, by furnishing information on the possibilities of
housing the additional number of laborers and their families.

10. _To see that the production of the plant is maintained
at the figures to be fixed by the governmental regulating
agencies, and until such time as these figures shall have been
fixed to see that the production reaches the normal average for
the plant, judged by a standard of conscientious labor._

11. To co-operate in estimating costs of production of the
plant upon the demand of the higher agency of workers’ control
or upon the demand of the governmental regulating institutions.

It is expressly stipulated that only the owner has “the right to give orders to the directors of the plant”; that the Control Commission “does not participate in the management of the plant and has no responsibility for its development and operation” (Article VII). It is also definitely stated that the Control Commission has no concern with financial management of the plant (Article VIII). Finally, while it has the right to “recommend for the consideration of the governmental regulating institutions the question of the sequestration of the plant or other measures of constraint upon the plant,” the Control Commission “has not the right to seize and direct the enterprise” (Article IX). These are the principal clauses of this remarkable document relating to the functions and methods of the Soviet system of control in the factory itself; other clauses deal with the relations of the factory organizations to the central governmental authority and to the trades-unions. They prescribe and define a most elaborate system of bureaucracy.

So much for the _imperium in imperio_ of the Soviet system of industrial control conceived by the Bolsheviki. In many important respects it is much more conservative than the system itself had been under Kerensky. It gives legal form and force to those very modifications which had been brought about, and it specifically prohibits the very abuses the Bolshevist agitators had fostered and the elimination of which they had everywhere bitterly resisted. Practically every provision in the elaborate decree of instructions limiting the authority of the workers, defining the rights of the managers, insisting upon the maintenance of production, and the like, the Kerensky government had endeavored to introduce, being opposed and denounced therefor by the Bolsheviki. It is easy to imagine how bitterly that decree of instructions on Workers’ Control would have been denounced by Lenin and Trotsky had it been issued by Kerensky’s Cabinet in July or August.

Let us not make the mistake, however, of assuming that because the Bolsheviki in power thus sought to improve the system of industrial control, to purge it of its weaknesses--its reckless lawlessness, sabotage, tyranny, dishonesty, and incompetence--that there was actually a corresponding improvement in the system itself. The pro-Bolshevist writers in this country and in western Europe have pointed to these instructions, and to many other decrees conceived in a similar spirit and couched in a similar tone, as conclusive evidence of moderation, constructive statesmanship, and wise intention. Alas! in statesmanship good intention is of little value. In politics and social polity, as in life generally, the road to destruction is paved with “good intentions.” The Lenins and Trotskys, who in opposition and revolt were filled with the fury of destruction, might be capable of becoming builders under the influence of a solemn recognition of the obligations of authority and power. But for the masses of the people no such change was possible. Such miracles do not happen, except in the disordered imaginations of those whose minds are afflicted with moral Daltonism and that incapacity for sequential thinking which characterizes such a wide variety of subnormal mentalities.

By their propaganda the Bolsheviki had fostered an extremely anti-social consciousness, embracing sabotage, lawlessness, and narrow selfishness; the manner in which they had seized the governmental power, and brutally frustrated the achievement of that great democratic purpose which had behind it the greatest collective spiritual impulse in the history of the nation, greatly intensified that anti-social consciousness. Now that they were in power these madmen hoped that in the twinkling of an eye, by the mere issuance of decrees and manifestoes, they could eradicate the evil thing. Canute’s command to the tide was not one whit more vain than their verbose decrees hurled against the relentless and irresistible sequence of cause and effect. Loafing, waste, disorder, and sabotage continued in the factories, as great a burden to the Bolshevist oligarchs as they had been to the democrats. Workers continued to “seize” factories as before, and production steadily declined to the music of an insatiable demand on the part of the workers for more pay. There was no change in the situation, except in so far as it grew worse. The governmental machine grew until it became like an immense swarm of devastating locusts, devouring everything and producing nothing. History does not furnish another such record of industrial chaos and ruinous inefficiency.

Five days after the seizure of power by the Bolsheviki, the Commissar of Labor, Shliapnikov, issued a protest against sabotage and violence. Naturally, he ascribed the excesses of the workers to provocation by the propertied classes. That “proletarian consciousness” upon which the Bolsheviki based their faith must have been sadly lacking in the workers if, at such a time, they were susceptible to the influence of the “propertied classes.” The fact is that the destructive anarchical spirit they had fostered was now a deadly menace to the Bolsheviki themselves. Shliapnikov wrote:

The propertied classes are endeavoring to create anarchy and
the ruin of industry by provoking the workmen to excesses
and violence over the question of foremen, technicians, and
engineers. They hope thereby to achieve the complete and
final ruin of all the mills and factories. The revolutionary
Commission of Labor asks you, our worker-comrades, to abstain
from all acts of violence and excess. By a joint and creative
work of the laboring masses and proletarian organizations, the
Commission of Labor will know how to surmount all obstacles
in its way. The new revolutionary government will apply the
most drastic measures against all industrials and those who
continue to sabotage industry, and thereby prevent the carrying
out of the tasks and aims of the great proletarian and peasant
Revolution. Executions without trial and other arbitrary acts
will only damage the cause of the Revolution. The Commission
of Labor calls on you for self-control and revolutionary
discipline.

In January, 1918, Lenin read to a gathering of party workers a characteristic series of numbered “theses,” which _Izvestia_ published on March 8th of that year. In that document he said:

1. The situation of the Russian Revolution at the present
moment is such that almost all workmen and the overwhelming
majority of the peasants undoubtedly are on the side of the
Soviet authority, and of the social revolution started by it.
To that extent the success of the socialistic revolution in
Russia is guaranteed.

2. At the same time the civil war, caused by the frantic
resistance of the propertied classes which understand very well
that they are facing the last and decisive struggle to preserve
private property in land, and in the means of production, has
not as yet reached its highest point. The victory of the Soviet
authority in this war is guaranteed, but inevitably some time
yet must pass, inevitably a considerable exertion of strength
will be required, a certain period of acute disorganization and
chaos, which always attend any war and in particular a civil
war, is inevitable, before the resistance of the bourgeoisie
will be crushed.

3. Further, this resistance takes less and less active and
non-military forms: sabotage, bribing beggars, bribing agents
of the bourgeoisie who have pushed themselves into the ranks
of the Socialists in order to ruin the latter’s cause, etc.
This resistance has proved stubborn, and capable of assuming
so many different forms, that the struggle against it will
inevitably drag along for a certain period, and will probably
not be finished in its main aspects before several months. And
without a decisive victory over this passive and concealed
resistance of the bourgeoisie and its champions, the success of
the socialistic revolution is impossible.

4. Finally, the organizing tasks of the socialistic
reorganization of Russia are so enormous and difficult that a
rather prolonged period of time is also required to solve them,
in view of the large number of petty bourgeois fellow-travelers
of the socialistic proletariat, and of the latter’s low
cultural level.

5. All these circumstances taken together are such that from
them result _the necessity, for the success of Socialism in
Russia, of a certain interval of time, not less than a few
months_, in the course of which the socialistic government must
have its hands absolutely free, in order to triumph over the
bourgeoisie, first of all in its own country, and in order to
adopt broad and deep organizing activity.

The greatest significance of Lenin’s words lies in their recognition of the seriousness of the non-military forms of resistance, sabotage, and the like, and of the “low cultural level” of the “socialistic proletariat.” Reading the foregoing statements carefully and remembering Lenin’s other utterances, both before and after, we are compelled to wonder whether he is intellectually dishonest, an unscrupulous trickster playing upon the credulity of his followers, or merely a loose thinker adrift and helpless on the swift tides of events. “For the success of Socialism ... not less than _a few months_” we read from the pen of the man who, in June of the previous year, while on his way from Switzerland, had written “Socialism cannot now prevail in Russia”; the same man who in May, 1918, was to tell his comrades “it is hardly to be expected that the even more developed coming generation will accomplish a complete transition to Socialism”; who later told Raymond Robins: “The Russian Revolution will probably fail. We have not developed far enough in the capitalist stage, we are too primitive to realize the Socialist state.”[30]

[30] _Vide_ testimony of Robins before U. S. Senate Committee.

And yet--“the success of Socialism ... not less than a few months!”

By the latter part of February, 1918, it was quite clear that the Soviet control of industry was “killing the goose that laid the golden eggs”; that it was ruining the industrial life of the nation. The official press began to discuss in the most serious manner the alarming decline in production and the staggering financial losses incurred in the operation of what formerly had been profitable enterprises. At the Extraordinary Congress of Soviets, in March, 1918, the seriousness of the situation caused great alarm and a desperate appeal was made to the workers to increase production, refrain from sabotage, and practise self-discipline. The congress urged “a merciless struggle against chaos and disorganization.” Lenin himself pointed out that confiscation of factories by the workers was ruining Russia. The very policy they had urged upon the workers, the seizure of the factories, was now seen as a menace.

On April 28, 1918, Lenin said: “If we are to expropriate at this pace, we shall be certain to suffer a defeat. The organization of production under proletarian control is notoriously very much behind the expropriation of big masses of capital.”[31] He had already come to realize that the task of transforming capitalist society to a Socialist society was not the easy matter he had believed shortly before. In September he had looked upon the task of realizing Socialism as a child might have done. It would require a Freudian expert to explain the silly childishness of this paragraph from _The State and Revolution_, published in September, 1917:

[31] _Soviets at Work._ I have quoted the passage as it appears in the English edition of Kautsky’s _Dictatorship of the Proletariat_, p. 125. This rendering, which conforms to the French translations of the authorized text, is clearer and stronger than the version given in the confessedly “improved” version of Lenin’s speech by Doctor Dubrovsky, published by the Rand School of Social Science.

Capitalist culture has created industry on a large scale in
the shape of factories, railways, posts, telephones, and so
forth; and on this basis the great majority of the functions
of the old state have become enormously simplified and reduced
in practice to very simple operations, such as registration,
filing, and checking. Hence they will be quite within the reach
of every literate person, and it will be possible to perform
them for the usual “working-man’s wages.”[32]

[32] _The State and Revolution_, by N. Lenin, p. 12.

Thus it was in September, before the overthrow of the Provisional Government. Then Lenin was at the head of a revolting faction and presented the task of reorganizing the state as very simple indeed. In April he was at the head of a government, confronted by realities, and emphasizing the enormous difficulty and complexity of the task of reorganization. _The Soviets at Work_ and the later booklet, _The Chief Tasks of Our Times_, lay great emphasis upon the great difficulties to be overcome, the need of experienced and trained men, and the folly of expecting anything like immediate success. “We know all about Socialism,” he said, “but we do not know how to organize on a large scale, how to manage distribution, and so on. The old Bolshevist leaders have not taught us these things, and this is not to the credit of our party.”[33]

[33] _The Chief Tasks of Our Times_, p. 12.

The same man who had urged the workers to “take possession of the factories” now realized how utterly unfitted the mass of the workers must be for undertaking the management of modern industrial establishments:

To every deputation of workers which has come to me complaining
that a factory was stopping work, I have said, “If you desire
the confiscation of your factory the decree forms are ready,
and I can sign a decree at once. But tell me: Can you take
over the management of the concern? Have you reckoned what
you can produce? Do you know the relations of your work with
Russian and foreign markets?” Then it has appeared that they
are inexperienced in these matters; that there is nothing
about them in the Bolshevist literature, in the Menshevist,
either.[34]

[34] _Idem_, p. 12.

Lenin and his associates had been brought face to face with a condition which many Marxian Socialist writers had foreseen was likely to exist, not only in Russia, but in far more highly developed industrial nations, namely, a dangerous decline of production and of the average productivity of the workers, instead of the enormous increase which must be attained before any of the promises of Socialism could be redeemed. A few figures from official Bolshevist sources will serve to illustrate the seriousness of the decline in production. The great Soromovo Works had produced fifteen locomotives monthly, even during the last months of the Kerensky régime. By the end of April, 1918, it was pointed out, the output was barely two per month. At the Mytishchy Works in Moscow, the production, as compared with 1916, was only 40 per cent. At this time the Donetz Basin was held by the Bolsheviki. The average monthly output in the coal-fields of this important territory prior to the arrival of the Bolsheviki was 125,000,000 poods. The rule of the Bolsheviki was marked by a serious and continuous decline in production, dropping almost at once to 80,000,000 poods and then steadily declining, month by month, until in April-May, 1918, it reached the low level of 26,000,000 poods.[35] When the Bolsheviki were driven away, the production rose month by month, until, in December, 1918, it had reached 40,000,000 poods. Then the Bolsheviki won control once more and came back, and at once production declined with great swiftness, soon getting down to 24,000,000 poods.[36] These figures, be it remembered, are official Bolshevist figures.

[35] _Economicheskaya Zhizn_, May 6, 1919.

[36] _Idem._

So serious was the decline of production in every department that a commission was appointed to investigate the matter. The commission reported in January, 1919, and from its report the following facts are quoted: in the Moscow railway workshops the number of workmen in 1916 was 1,192; in 1917 the number was 1,179; in 1918 it was 1,772--an increase of 50 per cent. The number of holidays and “off days” rose from 6 per cent. in 1916 to 12 per cent. in 1917 and 39.5 per cent. in 1918. At the same time, each car turned out per month represented the labor of 3.35 men in 1918 as against 1 in 1917 and .44 in 1916. In the Mytishchy Works, Moscow, the loss of production was enormous. Taking the eight-hour day as a basis, and counting as 100 the production of 1916, the production in 1917 amounted to 75, and only 40 in 1918. In the coal-mines of the Moscow region the fall of labor productivity was equally marked. The normal production per man is given as 750 poods per month. In 1916 the production was 614 poods; in 1917 it was 448 poods, and in 1918 it was only 242 poods. In the textile industries the decline in productivity was 35 per cent., including the flax industry, which does not depend upon the importation of raw materials.[37] In the Scherbatchev factory the per-capita production of calico was 68 per cent, lower than in 1917, according to the _Economicheskaya Zhizn_ (No. 50).

[37] For most of the statistical data in this chapter I am indebted to Prof. V. I. Issaiev, whose careful analyses of the statistical reports of the Soviet Government are of very great value to all students of the subject.--AUTHOR.

It is not necessary to quote additional statistics from the report of the investigating commission. The figures cited are entirely typical. The report as a whole reveals that there not only had been no arrest of the serious decline of the year 1917, but _an additional decline at an accelerated rate_, and that the condition was general throughout all branches of industry. The report attributes this serious condition partly to loss of efficiency in the workers due to under-nutrition, but more particularly to the mistaken conception of freedom held by the workers, their irresponsibility and indifference; to administrative chaos arising from inefficiency; and, finally, the enormous amount of time lost in holding meetings and elections and in endless committees. In general this report confirms the accounts furnished by the agent of the governments of Great Britain and the United States of America and published by them,[38] as well as reports made by well-known European Socialists.

[38] See the British _White Book_ and the _Memorandum on Certain Aspects of the Bolshevist Movement in Russia_, presented to the Foreign Relations Committee of the U. S. Senate by Secretary of State Lansing, January 5, 1920.

As early as April, 1918, Lenin and other Bolshevist leaders had taken cognizance of the enormous loss of time consumed by the innumerable meetings which Soviet control of industry involved. Lenin claimed, with much good reason, that much of this wasteful talking was the natural reaction of men who had been repressed too long, though his argument is somewhat weakened by the fact that there had been eight months of such talk before the Bolshevist régime began:

The habit of holding meetings is ridiculed, and more often
wrathfully hissed at by the bourgeoisie, Mensheviks, etc.,
who see only chaos, senseless bustle, and outbursts of petty
bourgeoisie egoism. But without the “holding of meetings” the
oppressed masses could never pass from the discipline forced
by the exploiters to conscious and voluntary discipline.
“Meeting-holding” is the real democracy of the toilers, their
straightening out, their awakening to a new life, their
first steps on the field which they themselves have cleared
of reptiles (exploiters, imperialists, landed proprietors,
capitalists), and which they want to learn to put in order
themselves in their own way; for themselves, in accord with
the principles of their, “Soviet,” rule, and not the rule of
the foreigners, of the nobility and bourgeoisie. The November
victory of the toilers against the exploiters was necessary; it
was necessary to have a whole period of elementary discussion
by the toilers themselves of the new conditions of life and
of the new problems to make possible _a secure transition to
higher forms of labor discipline, to a conscious assimilation
of the idea of the necessity of the dictatorship of the
proletariat, to absolute submission to the personal orders of
the representatives of the Soviet rule during work_.[39]

[39] _The Soviets at Work_, p. 37.

There is a very characteristic touch of Machiavellian artistry in this reference to “a secure transition to higher forms of labor discipline,” in which there is to be “absolute submission to the personal orders of the representatives of the Soviet rule during work.” The eloquent apologia for the Soviet system of industrial control by the workers carries the announcement of the liquidation of that system. It is to be replaced by some “higher forms of labor discipline,” forms which will not attempt the impossible task of conducting factories on “debating-society lines.” The “petty bourgeois tendency to turn the members of the Soviets into ‘parliamentarians,’ or, on the other hand, into bureaucrats,” is to be combated. In many places the departments of the Soviets are turning “into organs which gradually merge with the commissariats”--in other words, are ceasing to function as governing bodies in the factories. There is a difficult transition to be made which alone will make possible “the definite realization of Socialism,” and that is to put an end to the wastefulness arising from the attempt to combine the discussion and solution of political problems with work in the factories. There must be a return to the system of uninterrupted work for so many hours, with politics after working-hours. That is what is meant by the statement: “It is our object to obtain _the free performance of state obligations by every toiler after he is through with his eight-hour session of productive work_.”

Admirable wisdom! Saul among the prophets at last! The romancer turns realist! But this program cannot be carried out without making of the elaborate system of workers’ control a wreck, a thing of shreds and patches. Away goes the Utopian combination of factory and forum, in which the dynamos are stilled when there are speeches to be made--pathetic travesty of industry and government both. The toiler must learn that his “state obligations” are to be performed after the day’s work is done, and not in working-time at the expense of the pay-roll. More than this, it is necessary to place every factory under the absolute dictatorship of one person: