Chapter XII: Jurisdiction of the Local Organs of the Soviets (6)

Every large machine industry requires an absolute and strict
unity of the will which directs the joint work of hundreds,
thousands, and tens of thousands of people.... But how can
we secure a strict unity of will? By subjecting the will of
thousands to the will of one.[40]

[40] _The Soviets at Work._

If the workers are properly submissive, if they are “ideally conscious and disciplined,” this dictatorship may be a very mild affair; otherwise it will be stern and harsh:

There is a lack of appreciation of the simple and obvious
fact that, if the chief misfortunes of Russia are famine and
unemployment, these misfortunes cannot be overcome by any
outbursts of enthusiasm, but only by thorough and universal
organization of discipline, in order to increase the production
of bread for men and fuel for industry, to transport it in
time, and to distribute it in the right way. That, therefore,
responsibility for the pangs of famine and unemployment
falls on _every one who violates the labor discipline in any
enterprise and in any business_. That those who are responsible
should be discovered, tried, and _punished without mercy_.[41]

[41] _Idem._

Not only must the workers abandon their crude conception of industrial democracy as requiring the abolition of individual authority, but they must also abandon the notion that in the management of industry one man is as good as another. They must learn that experts are necessary:[42] “Without the direction of specialists of different branches of knowledge, technique, and experience, the transformation toward Socialism is impossible.” Although it is a defection from proletarian principles, a compromise, “a step backward by our Socialist Soviet state,” it is necessary to “make use of the old bourgeois method and agree to a very high remuneration for the biggest of the bourgeois specialists.” The proletarian principles must still further be compromised and the payment of time wages on the basis of equal remuneration for all workers must give place to payment according to performance; piece-work must be adopted. Finally, the Taylor system of scientific management must be introduced: “The possibility of Socialism will be determined by our success in combining the Soviet rule and 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._”[43]

[42] A much later statement of Lenin’s view is contained in this paragraph from a speech by him on March 17, 1920. The quotation is from _Soviet Russia_, official organ of the Russian Soviet Government Bureau in the United States:

“Every form of administrative work requires specific
qualifications. One may be the best revolutionist and agitator
and yet useless as an administrator. It is important that
those who manage industries be completely competent, and be
acquainted with all technical conditions within the industry.
We are not opposed to the management of industries by the
workers. _But we point out that the solution of the question
must be subordinate to the interests of the industry._
Therefore the question of the management of industry must
be regarded from a business standpoint. The industry must
be managed with the least possible waste of energy, and the
managers of the industry must be efficient men, whether they be
specialists or workers.”

[43] _The Soviets at Work._

In all this there is much that is fine and admirable, but it is in direct and fundamental opposition to the whole conception of industrial control by factory Soviets. No thoughtful person can read and compare the elaborate provisions of the Instructions on Workers’ Control, already summarized, and Lenin’s _Soviets at Work_ without reaching the conclusion that the adoption of the proposals contained in the latter absolutely destroys the former. The end of the Soviet as a proletarian industry-directing instrument was already in sight.

Bolshevism was about to enter upon a new phase. What the general character of that phase would be was quite clear. It had already been determined and Lenin’s task was to justify what was in reality a reversal of policy. The essential characteristics of the Soviet system in industry, having proved to be useless impedimenta, were to be discarded, and, in like manner, anti-Statism was to be exchanged for an exaggerated Statism. In February, 1918, the Bolshevist rulers of Russia were confronted by a grave menace, an evil inherent in Syndicalism in all its variant forms, including Bolshevism--namely, the assertion of exorbitant demands by workers employed in performing services of immediate and vital importance in the so-called “key industries.” Although the railway workers were only carrying the Bolshevist theories into practice, acquiescence in their demands would have placed the whole industrial life of Russia under their domination. Instead of a dictatorship of the proletariat, there would have been dictatorship by a single occupational group. Faced by this danger, the Bolshevist Government did not hesitate to nationalize the railways and place them under an absolute dictator, responsible, not to the railway workers, but to the central Soviet authority, the government. Wages, hours of labor, and working conditions were no longer subject to the decision of the railway workers’ councils, but were determined by the dictators appointed by the state. The railway workers’ unions were no longer recognized, and the right to strike was denied and strikes declared to be treason against the state. The railway workers’ councils were not abolished at first, but were reduced to a nominal existence as “consultative bodies,” which in practice were not consulted. Here was the apotheosis of the state: the new policy could not be restricted to railways; nationalization of industry, under state direction, was to take the place of the direction of industry by autonomous workers’ councils.

In May, 1918, Commissar of Finances Gukovsky, staggered by the enormous loss incurred upon every hand, in his report to the Congress of Soviets called attention to the situation. He said that the railway system, the arterial system of the industrial life of the nation, was completely disorganized and demoralized. Freight-tonnage capacity had decreased by 70 per cent., while operating expenses had increased 150 per cent. Whereas before the war operating expenses were 11,579 rubles per verst, in May, 1918, _wages alone_ amounted to 80,000 rubles per verst, the total working expenses being not less than 120,000 rubles per verst. A similar state of demoralization obtained, said Gukovsky, in the nationalized marine transportation service. In every department of industry, according to this highly competent authority, waste, inefficiency, idleness, and extravagance prevailed. He called attention to the swollen salary-list; the army of paid officials. Already the menace of what soon developed into a formidable bureaucracy was seen: “The machinery of the old régime has been preserved, the ministries remain, and parallel with them Soviets have arisen--provincial, district, volost, and so forth.”

In June, 1918, after the railways had been nationalized for some time, Kobozev, Bolshevist Commissar of Communications, said: “The eight-hour workday and the payment per hour have definitely disorganized the whole politically ignorant masses, who understand these slogans, not as an appeal to the most productive efficiency of a free citizen, but as a right to idleness unjustified by any technical means. _Whole powerful railway workshops give a daily disgraceful exhibition of inactivity_ on the principle of ‘Why should I work when my neighbor is paid by time for doing no work at all?’”

Although nationalization of industry had been decided upon in February, and a comprehensive plan for the administration and regulation of nationalized enterprises had been published in March, promulgated as a decree, with instructions that it must be enforced by the end of May, it was not until July that the Soviet Government really decided upon its enforcement. It should be said, however, that a good many factories were nationalized between April and July. Many factories were actually abandoned by their owners and directors, and had to be taken over. Many others were just taken in an “irregular manner” by the workers, who continued their independent confiscations. For this there was indeed some sort of authority in the decree of March, 1918.[44] Transportation had broken down, and there was a lack of raw materials. It was officially reported that in May there were more than 250,000 unemployed workmen in Moscow alone. No less than 224 machine-shops, which had employed an aggregate of 120,000 men, were closed. Thirty-six textile factories, employing a total of 136,000 operatives, were likewise idle. To avert revolt, it was necessary to keep these unemployed workers upon the pay-roll. Under czarism the policy of subsidizing industrial establishments out of the government revenues had been very extensively developed. This policy was continued by the Provisional Government under Kerensky and by the Bolsheviki in their turn. Naturally, with industry so completely disorganized, this led toward bankruptcy at a rapid rate. The following extract from Gukovsky’s report to the Central Executive Committee in May requires no elucidation:

[44] See text of the decree--Appendix.

Our Budget has reached the astronomical figures of from 80 to
100 billions of rubles. No revenue can cover such expenditure.
Our revenue for the half-year reaches approximately
3,294,000,000 rubles. It is exceedingly difficult to find a
way of escape out of this situation. The repudiation of state
loans played a very unfavorable part in this respect, as now
it is impossible to borrow money--no one will lend. Formerly
railways used to yield a revenue, and agriculture likewise. Now
agriculturists refuse to export their produce, they are feeding
better and hoarding money. The former apparatus--in the shape
of a Government Spirit Monopoly and rural police officers--no
longer exists. Only one thing remains to be done--to issue
paper money _ad infinitum_. But soon we shall not be able to do
even this.

At the Congress of the Soviets of People’s Economy in May, Rykov, the president of the Superior Council of the National Board of Economy, reported, concerning the nationalization of industries, that so far it had been carried out without regard to industrial economy or efficiency, but exclusively from the point of view of successfully struggling against the bourgeoisie. It was, therefore, a war measure, and must not be judged by ordinary economic standards. Miliutin, another Bolshevist Commissar, declared that “nationalization bore a punitive character.” It was pointed out by Gostev, another Bolshevist official, that it had been carried out against the wishes of many of the workers themselves quite as much as against the wishes of the bourgeoisie. “I must laugh when they speak of bourgeois sabotage,” he said. “_We have a national people’s and proletarian sabotage. We are met with enormous opposition from the labor masses when we start standardizing._” For good or ill, however, and despite all opposition, Bolshevism had turned to nationalization and to the erection of a powerful and highly centralized state. What the results of that policy were we shall see.

IX

THE NATIONALIZATION OF INDUSTRY--I

To judge fairly and wisely the success or failure of an economic and political policy so fundamental and far-reaching as the nationalization of industry we must discard theories altogether and rely wholly upon facts. Nothing could be easier than to formulate theoretical arguments of great plausibility and force, either in support of the state ownership of industries and their direction by state agencies or in opposition to such a policy. Interesting such theorizing may be, but nothing can be conclusively determined by it. When we come to deal with the case of a country where, as in Russia, nationalization of industry has been tried upon quite a large scale, there is only one criterion to apply, namely, its relative success as compared with other methods of industrial organization and management in the same or like conditions. If nationalization and state direction can be shown to have brought about greater advantage than other forms of industrial ownership and control, then nationalization is justified by that result; if, on the other hand, its advantages are demonstrably less, it must be judged a failure.

Whether the nationalization of industry by the Bolshevist Government of Russia was a sound policy, wisely conceived and carried out with a reasonable degree of efficiency, can be determined with a fair approach to certainty and finality. Our opinions concerning Karl Marx’s theory of the economic motivation of social evolution, or Lenin’s ability and character, or the methods by which the Bolsheviki obtained power, are absolutely irrelevant and inconsequential. History will base its estimate of Bolshevism, not upon the evidence of the terrorism which attended it, ample and incontestable as that evidence may be, but upon its success or failure in solving the great economic problems which it set out to solve. Our judgment of the nationalization of industry must not be warped by our resentment of those features of Bolshevist rule which established its tyrannical character. The ample testimony furnished by the official journals published by the Bolshevist Government and the Communist Party enables us to visualize with great clearness the conditions prevailing in Russia before nationalization of industry was resorted to. We have seen that there was an alarming shortage of production, a ruinous excess of cost per unit of production, a great deal of inefficiency and waste, together with a marked increase in the number of salaried administrative officials. We have seen that during the period of industrial organization and direction by the autonomous organizations of the workers in the factories these evils grew to menacing proportions. It was to remedy these evils that nationalization was resorted to. If, therefore, we can obtain definite and authoritative answers to certain questions which inevitably suggest themselves, we shall be in a position to judge the merits of nationalization, not as a general policy, for all times and places, but as a policy for Russia in the circumstances and conditions prevailing when it was undertaken. The questions suggest themselves: Was there any increase in the total volume of production? Was the average per-capita production raised or lowered? Did the new methods result in lessening the excessive average cost per unit of production? Was there any perceptible marked increase in efficiency? Finally, did nationalization lessen the number of salaried administrative officials or did it have a contrary effect?

We are not concerned with opinions here, but only with such definite facts as are to be had. The replies to our questions are to be found in the mass of statistical data which the Bolsheviki have published. We are not compelled to rely upon anybody’s opinions or observations; the numerous reports published by the responsible officials of the Bolshevist Government, and by their official press, contain an abundance of statistical evidence affording adequate and reliable answer to each of the questions we have asked.

Because the railways were nationalized first, and because of their vital importance to the general economic life of the nation, let us consider how the nationalization of railroad transportation worked out. The following table is taken from the report of the Commissar of Ways and Communications:

Working
Gross Working Expenses Wages and Profit and
Year Receipts Expenses per Verst Salaries Loss
(rubles) (rubles) (rubles) (rubles) (rubles)

1916 1,350,000,000 1,210,000,000 1,700 650,000,000 +140,000,000
1917 1,400,000,000 3,300,000,000 46,000 2,300,000,000 -1,900,000,000
1918 1,500,000,000 9,500,000,000 44,000 8,000,000,000 -8,000,000,000

These figures indicate that the nationalization of railways during the nine months of 1918 was characterized by a condition which no country in the world could stand for a very long time. This official table affords no scintilla of a suggestion that nationalization was succeeding any better than the anarcho-Syndicalist management which preceded it. The enormous increase in operating cost, the almost stationary receipts, and the resulting colossal deficit require no comment. At least on the financial side the nationalization policy cannot be said to have been a success, a fact which was frankly admitted by the _Severnaya Communa_, March 26, 1919. To see a profit of 140 million rubles transformed into a loss of 8 billion rubles is surely a serious matter.

Let us, however, adopt another test than that of finance, namely, the service test, and see whether that presents us with a more favorable result: According to the official report of the Commissar of Ways and Communications, there were in operation on October 1, 1917--that is, shortly before the Bolshevist _coup d’état_--52,597 versts[45] of railroad line in operation; on October 1, 1918, there were in operation 21,800 versts, a decrease of 30,797. On October 1, 1917, there were in working order 15,732 locomotives; on October 1, 1918, the number had dwindled to 5,037, a decrease of 10,695. On October 1, 1917, the number of freight cars in working condition was 521,591; on October 1, 1918, the number was 227,274, a decrease of 294,317.

[45] One verst equals .663 mile, roughly, about two-thirds of a mile.

The picture presented by these figures is, for one who knows the economic conditions in Russia, simply appalling. At its best the Russian railway system was wholly inadequate to serve the economic life of the nation. The foregoing official figures indicate an utter collapse of the railways at a time when the nation needed an efficient railroad transportation system more than at any time in its history. One of the reasons for the collapse of the railway system was the failure of the fuel supply. In northern and central Russia wood is generally used for fuel in the factories and on the railways. Difficult as it might be for them to maintain the supply of coal under the extraordinary conditions prevailing, it would seem that with enormous forests at their disposal, so near at hand, they would have found it relatively easy to supply the railways with wood for fuel purposes. Yet nowhere in the whole range of the industrial system of Russia was the failure more disastrous or more complete than here. According to an official estimate, the amount of wood fuel required for the railways from May 1, 1918, to May 1, 1919, estimated upon the basis of “famine rations,” was 4,954,000 cubic sazhens,[46] of which 858,000 cubic sazhens was on hand, leaving 4,096,000 cubic sazhens as the amount to be provided. A report published in the _Economicheskaya Zhizn_ (No. 41) stated that not more than 18 per cent. of the total amount of wood required was felled, and that not more than one-third of that amount was actually delivered to the railways. In other words, 82 per cent. of the wood fuel was not cut at all, at least so far as the particular economic body whose business it was to provide the wood was concerned. Extraordinary measures had to be taken to secure the fuel. From _Economicheskaya Zhizn_, February 22, 1919, we learn that the railway administration managed to secure fuel wood amounting to 70 per cent. of its requirements, and the People’s Superior Economic Council another 2 per cent., a very large part of which had been secured by private enterprise. If this last statement seems astonishing and anomalous, it must be understood that as early as January 17, 1919, Lenin, as President of the Central Soviet Government, promulgated a decree which in a very large measure restored the right to private enterprise. Already nationalization was being pronounced a failure by Lenin. In an address announcing this remarkable modification of policy he said:

[46] One sazhen equals seven feet.

If each peasant would consent to reduce his consumption of
products to a point a little less than his needs and turn over
the remainder to the state, and if we were able to distribute
that remainder regularly, we could go on, assuring the
population a food-supply, insufficient, it is true, but enough
to avoid famine.

This last is, however, beyond our strength, due to our
disorganization. The people, exhausted by famine, show the most
extreme impatience. Assuredly, we have our food policy, but
the essential of it is that the decrees should be executed.
_Although they were promulgated long ago, the decrees relative
to the distribution of food products by the state never have
been executed because the peasants will sell nothing for paper
money._

It is better to tell the truth. _The conditions require that we
should pitilessly, relentlessly force our local organizations
to obey the central power._ This, again, is difficult because
millions of our inhabitants are accustomed to regard any
central power as an organization of exploiters and brigands.
They have no confidence in us and without confidence it is
impossible to institute an economic régime.

The crisis in food-supplies, aggravated by the breakdown of
transportation, explains the terrible situation that confronts
us. At Petrograd the condition of the transportation service is
desperate. The rolling-stock is unusable.

Another reason for the failure of the railways under nationalization during the first year’s experimentation with that policy was the demoralization of the labor force. The low standard of efficiency, constant loafing, and idleness were factors in the problem. The interference by the workers’ councils was even more serious. When the railways were nationalized the elected committees of workers, while shorn of much of their power, were retained as consultative bodies, as we have already seen. Toward the end of 1918 the officials responsible for the direction of the railroads found even that measure of authority which remained to these councils incompatible with efficient organization. Consequently, at the end of 1918 the abolition of the workers’ committees of control was decreed and the dictatorial powers of the railroad directors made absolute. The system of paying wages by the day was replaced by a piece-work system, supplemented by cash bonuses for special efficiency. Later on, as we shall see, these changes were made applicable to all the nationalized industries. Thus, the principal features of the capitalist wage system were brought back to replace the communistic principles which had failed. When Lomov, president of the Chief Forest Committee, declared, as reported in _Izvestia_, June 4, 1919, that “proletarian principles must be set aside and the services of private capitalistic apparatus made use of,” he simply gave expression to what was already a very generally accepted view.

The “return to capitalism,” as it was commonly and justly described, had begun in earnest some months before Lomov made the declaration just quoted. The movement was attended by a great deal of internal conflict and dissension. In particular the trades-unions were incensed because they were practically suppressed as autonomous organs of the working-class. The dictatorship of the proletariat was already assuming the character of a dictatorship over the proletariat by a strongly centralized state. The rulers of this state, setting aside the written Constitution, were in fact not responsible to any electorate. They ruled by fiat and proclamation and ruthlessly suppressed all who sought to oppose them. They held that, industry having become nationalized, trades-unions were superfluous, and that strikes could not be tolerated because they became, _ipso facto_, acts of treason against the state. Such was the evolution of this anti-Statist movement.

The unions resisted the attempts to deprive them of their character as fighting organizations. They protested against the denial of the right to strike, the suppression of their meetings and their press. They resented the arbitrary fixing of their wages by officials of the central government. As a result, there was an epidemic of strikes, most of which were suppressed with great promptitude and brutality. At the Alexander Works, Moscow, eighty workers were killed by machine-gun fire. From March 6 to 26, 1919, the _Krasnaya Gazeta_ published accounts of fifteen strikes in Petrograd, involving more than half the wage-workers of the city, some of the strikes being attended with violence which was suppressed by armed troops. At the beginning of March there was such a strike at the Tula Works, reported in _Izvestia_, March 2, 1919. On March 16, 1919, the _Severnaya Communa_ gave an account of the strike at the famous Putilov Works, and of the means taken to “clear out the Social Revolutionary blackguards”--meaning thereby the striking workmen. _Pravda_ published on March 23, 1919, accounts of serious strikes at the Putilov Works, the Arthur Koppel Works, the government car-building shops, and elsewhere. Despite a clearly defined policy on the part of the press to ignore labor struggles as far as possible, sufficient was published to show that there was an intense struggle by the Russian proletariat against its self-constituted masters. “The workers of Petrograd are in the throes of agitation, and strikes are occurring in some shops. The Bolsheviki have been making arrests,” said _Izvestia_ on March 2, 1919.

Of course it may be fairly said that the strikes did not of themselves indicate a condition of unrest and dissatisfaction peculiar to Russia. That is quite true. There were strikes in many countries in the early months of 1919. This fact does not, however, add anything to the strength of the defense of the Bolshevist régime. In the capitalist countries, where the struggle between the wage-earning and the employing classes is a normal condition, strikes are very ordinary phenomena. The Bolsheviki, in common with all other Socialists, pointed to these conflicts as evidence of the unfitness of capitalism to continue; and of the need for Socialism. It was the very essence of their faith that in the Socialist state strikes would be unknown, because no conflict of class interests would be possible. Yet here in the Utopia of the Bolsheviki the proletarian dictatorship was accompanied by strikes and lock-outs precisely like those common to the capitalist system in all lands. _Moreover, while the nations which still retained the capitalist system had their strikes, there was not one of them in which such brutal methods of repression were resorted to._ Russia was at war, we are told, and strikes were a deadly menace to her very existence. But this argument, like the other, is of no avail. England, France, Italy, and America on the one side, and Germany and Austria upon the other side, all had strikes during the war, but in no one of them were strikers shot down with such savage recklessness as in Russia under the Bolsheviki.

Where and when in any of the great capitalist nations during the war was there such a butchery of striking workmen as that at the Alexander Works, already referred to? Where and when during the whole course of the war did any capitalist government suppress a strike of workmen with anything like the brutality with which the Bolshevist masters of Russia suppressed the strike at the Putilov Works in March, 1919? At first the marines in Petrograd were ordered to disperse the strikers and break the strike, but they refused to obey the order. At a meeting these marines decided that, rather than shoot down the striking workmen, they would join forces with them. Then the Bolsheviki called out detachments of coast guards, armed sailors from Kronstadt and Petrograd formerly belonging to the “disciplinary battalions,” chiefly Letts. The strikers put up an armed resistance, being supported in this by a small body of soldiers. They were soon overcome, however, and the armed sailors took possession of the works and summarily executed many of the strikers, shooting them on the spot without even a drum-head court martial. The authorities issued a proclamation--published in _Severnaya Communa_, March 16, 1919--forbidding the holding of meetings and “inviting” the strikers back to work:

All honest workmen desirous of carrying out the decision of
the Petrograd Soviet and ready to start work will be allowed
to go into the factory on condition that they forthwith go to
their places and take up their work. All those who begin work
will receive an additional ration of one-half pound of bread.
They who do not want to resume work will be at once discharged,
without receiving any concessions. A special commission will
be formed for the reorganization of the works. _No meetings
will be allowed to be held...._ For the last time the Petrograd
Soviet invites the Putilov workmen to expiate their crime
committed against the working-class and the peasantry of
Russia, and to cease at once their foolish strike.

On the following day this “invitation” was followed up by a typical display of Bolshevist force. A detachment of armed sailors went to the homes of the striking workmen and at the point of the bayonet drove the men back into the works, about which a strong guard was placed. The men were kept at work by armed guards placed at strategic positions in the shops. All communication with the outside was strictly prohibited. Numerous arrests were made. With grim irony the Bolshevist officials posted in and around the shops placards explaining that, unlike imperialistic and capitalistic governments, the Soviet authority had no intention of suppressing strikes or insurrections by armed force. For the good of the Revolution, however, and to meet the war needs, the government would use every means at its command to force the workmen to remain at their tasks and to prevent all demonstrations.

A bitter struggle took place between the trades-unions and the Soviet Government. It was due, not to strikes merely, or even mainly, though these naturally brought out its bitterest manifestations. The real cause of the conflict was the fact that the government had thrown communism to the winds and adopted a policy of state capitalism. All the evils of capitalism in its relation to the workers reappeared, intensified and exaggerated as an inevitable result of being fundamental elements of the polity of an all-powerful state wholly free from democratic control. The abolition of the right to strike; the introduction of piece-work, augmented by a bonus system in place of day wages; the arbitrary fixing of wages and working conditions; the withdrawal of the powers which the workers’ councils, led by the unions, had possessed since the beginning of the Revolution, and the substitution for the crude spirit of democracy which inspired the Soviet control of industry of the despotic principle of autocracy, “absolute submission to the will of a single individual”--these things inevitably evoked the active hostility of the organized workers. It was from the proletariat, and from its most “class-conscious” elements, that the Bolshevist régime received this determined resistance.

Many unions were suppressed altogether. This happened to the Teachers’ Union, which was declared to be “counter-revolutionary.”[47] It happened also to the Printers’ Union. In this case the authorities simply declared that all membership cards were invalid and that the old officers were displaced. In order to work as a printer it was necessary to get a new card of membership, and such cards were only issued to those who signed declarations of loyalty to the Bolshevist authority.[48] The trades-unions were made to conform to the decisions of the Communist Party and subordinated to the rule of the Commissaries. Upon this point there is a good deal of evidence available, though most of it comes from non-Bolshevist sources. The references to this important matter in the official Bolshevist press are very meager and vague, and the Ransomes, Goodes, Malones, Coppings, and other apologists are practically silent upon the subject.

[47] See Keeling, _op. cit._

[48] _Idem._

The Socialist and trades-union leader, Oupovalov, from whom we have previously quoted, testifies that “Trades-unions, as working-class organizations independent of any political party, were transformed by the Bolsheviki into party organizations and subordinated to the Commissaries.” Strumillo, equally competent as a witness, says: “Another claim of the Social Democrats--that trades-unions should be independent of political parties--likewise came to nothing. They were all to be under the control of the Bolsheviki. Alone the All-Russian Union of Printers succeeded in keeping its independence, _but eventually for that it was dispersed by the order of Lenin, and the members of its Executive Committee arrested_.” These statements are borne out by the testimony of the English trades-unionist, Keeling, who says:

If a trades-union did not please the higher Soviet it was fined
and suppressed and a new union was formed in its place by the
Bolsheviks themselves. Entry to this new union was only open to
members of the old union who signed a form declaring themselves
entirely in agreement with, and prepared completely to support
in every detail, the policy of the Soviet Government.

Refusal to join on these terms meant the loss of the work
and the salary, together with exclusion from both the first
and second categories.[49] It will readily be understood how
serious a matter it was to oppose any coercive measure.

[49] _I.e._, the food categories entitling one to the highest and next highest food rations.

Every incentive was held out to the poorer people to spy and
report on the others. A workman or a girl who gave information
that any member of the trades-union was opposed in any way to
the Soviet system was specially rewarded. He or she would be
given extra food and promoted as soon as possible to a seat
upon the executive of the union or a place on the factory
committee.

Soon after the first Congress of the Railroad Workers’ Unions, in February, 1918, the unions of railway workers were “merged with the state”--that is, they were forbidden to strike or to function as defensive or offensive organizations of the workers, and were compelled to accept the direction of the officials appointed by the central government and to carry out their orders. At the second Congress of the Railroad Workers’ Unions, February, 1919, according to _Economicheskaya Zhizn_ (No. 42), this policy was “sharply and categorically opposed” by Platonov, himself a Bolshevik and one of the most influential of the leaders of the railway men’s unions. At the Moscow Conference of Shop Committees and Trades-Unions, March, 1919, it was reported, according to _Economicheskaya Zhizn_ (No. 51), the unions “having given up their neutrality and independence, completely merged their lot with that of the Soviet Government.... Their work came to be closely interwoven with the state activities of the Soviet Government.... Only practical utilitarian considerations prevent us from completely merging the trades-unions with the administrative apparatus of the state.”

At the ninth Congress of the Communist Party, held in Moscow, Bucharin proposed the adoption of certain “basic principles” governing the status of trades-unions and these were accepted by the Congress: “In the Soviet state economic and political issues are indivisible, therefore the economic organs of the Labor movement--the unions--have to be completely merged with the political--the Soviets--and not to continue as independent organizations as is the case in a capitalistic state. Being more limited in their scope, they have to be subordinate to the Soviets, which are more universal institutions. But merging with the Soviet apparatus the unions by no means become organs of the state power; they only take upon themselves the economic functions of this power.” In his speech Bucharin contended that “such an intimate connection of the trades-unions with the Soviet power will present an ideal network of economic administrative organization covering the whole of Russia.” It is quite clear that the unions must cease to exist as fighting organizations in the Bolshevist state, and become merely subordinate agencies carrying out the will of the central power.

Even if this testimony, official and otherwise, were lacking, it would be evident from the numerous strikes of a serious character among the best organized workers, and from their violence, that Bolshevism at this stage of its development found itself in opposition to the trades-unions. And if the evidence upon that point were not overwhelming and conclusive, it would only be necessary to read carefully the numerous laws and decrees of the Bolshevist Government, and to observe the development of its industrial policy, in order to understand that trades-unions, as independent and militant working-class organizations, fighting always to advance the interests of their class, could not exist under such a system.

The direct and immediate reason for the policy that was adopted toward the unions was, of course, the state of the industries, which made it impossible to meet the ever-growing demands made by the unions. There was, however, a far deeper and profounder reason, namely, the character of the unions themselves. The Bolsheviki had been forced to recognize the fundamental weakness of every form of Syndicalism, including Sovietism. They had found that the Soviets were not qualified to carry on industry efficiently; that narrow group interests were permitted to dominate, instead of the larger interests of society as a whole. The same thing was true of the trades-unions. By its very nature the trades-union movement is limited to a critical purpose and attitude; it makes demands and evades responsibilities. The trades-union does not and cannot, as a trades-union, possess the capacity for constructive functioning that a co-operative society possesses, for instance.

This fact was very clearly and frankly stated in March, 1919, by L. B. Krassin, in a criticism which was published in the _Economicheskaya Zhizn_ (No. 52). He pointed out that, apart from the struggle for higher wages, “the labor control on the part of the trades-unions confined itself the whole time to perfunctory supervision of the activities of the plants, and completely ignored the general work of production. A scientific technical control, the only kind that is indispensable, is altogether beyond the capacities of the trades-unions.” The same issue of this authoritative Bolshevist organ stated that at the Conference of Electrical Workers it was reported that “In the course of last year everybody admitted the failure of workers’ control,” and that the conference had adopted a resolution “to replace the working-men’s control by one of inspection--_i.e._, by the engineers of the Council of National Economy.”

Instead of the expected idyllic peace and satisfaction, there was profound unrest in the Utopia of the Bolsheviki. There was not even the inspiration of enthusiastic struggle and sacrifice to attain the goal. The organized workers were disillusioned. They found that the Bolshevist state, in its relations to them as employer, differed from the capitalist employers they had known mainly in the fact that it had all the coercive forces of the state at its command, and a will to use them without any hesitation or any mercy. One view of the social and industrial unrest of the period is set forth in the following extract from the _Severnaya Communa_, March 30, 1919:

At the present moment a tremendous struggle is going on within
the ranks of the proletariat between two diametrically opposed
currents. Part of the proletariat, numerically in the great
majority, still tied to the village, both in a material as well
as an ideological respect, is in an economic sense inclined to
anarchism. It is not connected in production and in interest
in its development. The other part is the industrial, highly
skilled mechanics, who fight for new methods of production.

_By the equalization of pay, and by the introduction of
majority rule in the management of the factories, supposed
to be a policy of democracy, we are only sawing off the limb
on which we are sitting_, for the flower of our proletariat,
the most efficient workers, prefer to go to the villages,
or to engage in home trades, or to do anything else but to
remain within those demolished and dusty fortresses we call
factories. Why, this means in its truest sense _a dictatorship
of unskilled laborers_!

This outcry from one of the principal official organs of the Bolsheviki is interesting from several points of view. The struggle within the proletariat itself is recognized. This alone could only mean the complete abandonment of faith in the original Bolshevist ideal, which was based upon the solidarity of interest of the working-class as a whole. The denunciation of the equalitarian principle of uniform wages for all workers, and of majority rule in the factories, could only come from a conviction that Bolshevism and Sovietism were alike unsuited to Russia and undesirable. The scornful reference to a “dictatorship of unskilled laborers” might have come from any bourgeois employer.

From the official Bolshevist press of this period pages of quotations might easily be given to show that the transformation to familiar capitalist conditions was proceeding at a rapid rate. Thus, the Bolshevist official, Glebov, reported at the Conference of Factory Committees, in March, 1919: “The fight against economic disintegration demanded the reintroduction of the premium system. This system has produced splendid results in many instances, having increased the productivity of labor 100 to 200 per cent.” The Bolshevist journal, _Novy Put_, declared, “The most effective means for raising the efficiency of labor is the introduction of the premium and piece-work system as against daily wages.” The _Economicheskaya Zhizn_ (No. 46) declared, “An investigation undertaken last month by the trades-unions has shown that in 75 per cent. of the plants the old system of wages has been reintroduced and that nearly everywhere this has been followed by satisfactory and even splendid results.” The same issue of this important official organ showed that there had been large increases in production wherever the old system of wages and premiums had been restored. At the Marx Printing Works the increase was 20 per cent.; at the Nobel Factory 35 per cent.; at the Aviation Plant 150 per cent.; and at Seminov’s Lumber Mill 243 per cent.

The _Severnaya Communa_ reported that “In the Nevski Works the substitution of the premium system for the monthly wage system increased the productivity of the working-men three and one-half times, and the cost of labor for one locomotive dropped from 1,400,000 rubles to 807,000 rubles--_i.e._, to almost one-half.” Rykov, president of the Superior Council of National Economy, one of the ablest of the Bolshevist officials, reported, according to _Izvestia_, that “in the Tula Munition Works, after the old ‘premium’ system of wages had been restored, the productivity of the works and of labor rose to 70 per cent. of what it was in 1916.”

These are only a few of the many similar statements appearing in the official Bolshevist press pointing to a reversal of policy and a return to capitalist methods. On March 1, 1919, a decree of the People’s Commissaries was promulgated which introduced a new wage scale, based upon the principle of extra pay for skill. The greater the skill the higher the rate of wages was the new rule. As published in _Severnaya Communa_, the scale provided for twenty-seven classes of workers. The lowest, unskilled class of laborers, domestics, and so forth, receive 600 rubles per month (1st class), 660 rubles (2d class), and so on. Higher employees, specialists, are put in classes 20 to 27, and receive from 1,370 to 2,200 rubles a month. Skilled mechanics in chemical plants, for example, receive 1,051-1,160 rubles. Unskilled laborers, 600 rubles, and chemical engineers more than 2,000 rubles a month.

Nationalization of industry meant, and could only mean, state capitalism. Communism was as far away as it was under czarism. And many of the old complaints so familiar in capitalist countries were heard. The workers were discontented and restless; production, while it was better than under Soviet control, was still far below the normal level; there was an enormous growth of bureaucracy and an appalling amount of corruption. Profiteering and speculation were rampant and inefficiency was the order of the day. The following extract from an article in _Pravda_, March 15, 1919, is a confession of failure most abject:

Last year the people of Russia were suffering from lack of
bread. To-day they are in distress because there is plenty of
foodstuffs which cannot be brought out from the country and
which will, no doubt, decay to a great extent when hot weather
arrives.

The misery of bread scarcity is replaced by another
calamity--the plentifulness of breadstuffs. That the situation
is really such is attested by these figures:

The Food Commission and its subsidiary organs have stored up
from August, 1918, to February 20, 1919, grain and forage
products amounting to 82,633,582 poods. There remained on the
last-mentioned date in railroad stations and other collection
centers not less than 22,245,072 poods of grain and fodder.
Of these stocks, according to the incomplete information by
the Transport Branch of the Food Commission, there are stalled
on the Moscow-Kazan and Syzran-Viazma Railroads alone not
less than 2,000,000 poods of grain in 2,382 cars. There are,
moreover, according to the same source, on the Kazanburgsk and
Samara-Zlatoostovsk Line, at least 1,300 more car-loads of
breadstuffs that cannot be moved.

All this grain is stalled because there are no locomotives to
haul the rolling-stock. Thus the starving population does not
receive the bread which is provided for it and which is, in
part, even loaded up in cars.

* * * * *

In a hungry land there must be no misery while there is a
surplus of bread. Such a misfortune would be truly unbearable!

On April 15, 1919, _Izvestia_ published an article by Zinoviev, in which the famous Bolshevist leader confessed that the Soviet Government had not materially benefited the average working-man:

Has the Soviet Government, has our party done everything that
can be done for the direct improvement of the daily life of the
average working-man and his family? Alas! we hesitate to answer
this question in the affirmative.

Let us look the truth in the face. We have committed quite a
number of blunders in this realm. _We have to confess that
we are unable to improve the nutrition of the average worker
to any serious extent._ But do the wages correspond with the
actually stupendous rise of prices for unrationed foodstuffs?
Nobody will undertake to answer this question entirely in the
affirmative, while the figures given by Comrade Strumilin
show that in spite of a threefold raise of the wage scale,
the real purchasing power of these wages had shrunk, on the
average, more than 30 per cent. by March of the current year,
as compared with May of last year.

The _Economicheskaya Zhizn_, May 6, 1919, gave a despondent account of the coal industry and the low production, accompanied by this alarming picture: “The starving, ill-clad miners are running away from the pits in a panic, and it is to be feared that in two or three weeks not only the whole production of coal will be stopped, but most of the mines will be flooded.”

Nationalization of industry was not a new thing in Russia. It was, indeed, quite common under czarism. The railways were largely state owned and operated by the government. Most of the factories engaged in the manufacture of guns and munitions were also nationalized under czarism. It is interesting, therefore, to compare the old régime with the new in this connection. Under czarism nationalization had always led to the creation of an immense bureaucracy, politically powerful by reason of its numbers, extravagant, inefficient, and corrupt. That nationalization under the new régime was attended by the same evils, in an exaggerated form, the only difference being that the new bureaucracy was drawn from a different class, is written so plainly in the records that he who runs may read. No country in the world, it is safe to say, has ever known such a bureaucracy as the Bolshevist régime produced.

At the eighth All-Russian Congress of the Communist Party, held in March, 1919, Lenin said: “You imagine that you have abolished private property, but instead of the old bourgeoisie that has been crushed you are faced by a new one. The places of the former bourgeoisie have already been filled up by the newly born bourgeoisie.” The backbone of this new bourgeoisie was the vast army of government officials and employees. These and the food speculators and profiteers, many of whom have amassed great wealth--real wealth, not worthless paper rubles--make up a formidable bourgeoisie. Professor Miliukov tells of a statistical department in Moscow with twenty-one thousand employees; and of eighteen offices having to be visited to get permission to buy a pair of shoes from the government store. Alexander Berkenheim, vice-chairman of the Moscow Central Union of Russian Consumers’ Co-operative Societies, said: “The experiment in socialization has resulted in the building up of an enormous bureaucratic machine. To buy a pencil one has to call at eighteen official places.” These men are competent witnesses, notwithstanding their opposition to Bolshevism. Let us put it aside, however, and consider only a small part of the immense mass of official Bolshevist testimony to the same general effect.

On February 21, 1919, the Bolshevist official, Nemensky, presented to the Supreme Council of National Economy the report of the official inspection and audit of the Centro-Textile, the central state organization having charge of the production and distribution of textiles. There are some sixty of these organizations, such as Centro-Sugar, Centro-Tea, Centro-Coal, and so on, the entire number being federated into the Supreme Council of National Economy. From the report referred to, as published in _Economicheskaya Zhizn_, February 25, 1919, the following paragraphs are quoted:

An enormous staff of employees (about 6,000), for the most
part loafing about, doing nothing; it was discovered that 125
employees were actually not serving at all, but receiving a
salary the same as the others. There have been cases where
some have been paid twice for the same period of time. _The
efficiency of the officials is negligible to a striking
degree...._

The following figures may partially serve as an illustration of
what was the work of the collaborators: For four months--from
August 25 to November 21, 1918--the number of letters received
amounted to 59,959 (making an average of 500 a day), and the
number of letters sent was 25,781 (an average of 207 per day).
Each secretary had to deal with 10 letters received and 4 sent,
each typist with 2 letters sent, and each clerk with 1 letter
received and 0.5 sent. Together with chairs, tables, etc., the
inventory-book contained entries of dinners, rent, etc. When
checking the inventory of the department it was established
that the following were missing--142 tables, 500 chairs, 39
cupboards, 14 typewriters, etc. On the whole, the entries in
the book exceeded by 50 per cent, the number of articles found
on the spot.

Commenting upon this report the _Izvestia_[50] said: “An enormous staff of employees in most cases lounge about in idleness. An inquiry showed that _the staff of the Centro-Textile included 125 employees who were practically not in its service, though drawing their pay. There were cases where one and the same person drew his pay twice over for one and the same period of time._ The working capacity of the employees is ridiculously low; the average correspondence per typist was one letter outward and one inward per day; the average per male clerk was a half a letter outward and one inward.” We do not wonder, at Nemensky’s own comment, “Such Soviet institutions are a beautiful example of deadening bureaucracy and must be liquidated.”

[50] No. 63, 1919.

The disclosures made in the Centro-Textile were repeated in other state economic institutions. Thus the _Izvestia_ of the State Control, commenting upon the Budget for 1919, said:

The Audit Department sees in the increase of expenditure for
the payment of work a series of negative causes. Among these is
that it leads to a double working on parallel lines--_viz._,
the same work is done by two and even more sections, resulting
in mutual friction and disorder and bringing the number of
employees beyond all necessary requirements. We noticed on
more than one occasion that an institution with many auxiliary
branches had been opened before any operations to be carried on
by them were even started.

Furthermore, the work is mostly very slovenly and inefficiently
conducted. It leads to an increase of the number of employees
and workmen without benefit to the work.

In the _Bulletin of the Central Executive Committee of the Soviets_ (No. 15) we find this confession: “We have created extraordinary commissaries and Extraordinary Commissions without number. All of these are, to a lesser or greater degree, only mischief-makers.” Lunacharsky, the Bolshevist Commissary of Education, is reported by the _Severnaya Communa_ of May 23, 1919, as saying: “The upper stratum of the Soviet rule is becoming detached from the masses and the blunders of the communist workers are becoming more and more frequent. These latter, according to statements made by workmen, treat the masses in a high-handed manner and are very generous with threats and repressions.” In _Pravda_, May 14, 1919, the Bolshevik, Monastyrev, wrote: “Such a wholesale loafing as is taking place in our Soviet institutions and such a tremendous number of officials the history of the world has never known and does not know. All the Soviet papers have written about it, and we have felt it on our backs, too.” _Izvestia_ of the Central Executive Committee (No. 15), 1919, said: “Besides Soviets and committees, many commissaries and committees have been instituted here. Almost every commissariat has an extraordinary organ peculiar to its own department. As a result we have numberless commissaries of all kinds. All of them are more or less highly arbitrary in their behavior and by their actions undermine Soviet authority.”

These are only a few of the many statements of a like character published in the official Bolshevist press. In a country which had long been accustomed to an immense bureaucracy, the horde of officials was regarded with astonishment and alarm. Like the old bureaucracy, the new bureaucracy was at once brutal and corrupt. No one can read the reports published by the Bolsheviki themselves and fail to be impressed by the entire absence of idealism so far as the great majority of the officials are concerned, a fact which Lenin himself has commented upon more than once. That there were and are exceptions to the rule we may well believe, just as there were such exceptions under the old régime of Nicholas II. Upon the whole, however, it is difficult to see wherein the bureaucracy of the Bolsheviki was less brutal, less coarse, or less corrupt than that of czarism. But again let the Bolsheviki speak through their own recognized spokesmen: